ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Strachan studied Fine Art Sculpture at Central St Martins, Exeter College and Dublin’s National College of Art and Design before a freelance career in London specialising in making creatures for film, TV and theatre, including working on the first Harry Potter film, a stage production of Doctor Doolittle and a TV adaptation of Animal Farm.

She moved to Devon in 2002 to have a family,  continued making puppets, dolls and dogs and in 2018 collaborated with Orla Kiely for her retrospective exhibition, “A Life in Pattern” at The Fashion Museum in London making 27 dolls wearing miniaturised versions of her dresses.

Sarah exhibited a conceptual art installation “ G H O S T” at Torre Abbey in Torquay (2020) and in The Bell Tower on the Dartington estate (2019)Since 2021 she has been drawing and painting and had a solo exhibition at Birdwood House in Totnes in 2024 as well as being in group shows and open studio events.

Her work is abstract, intuitive, conscious of not being over-worked, seeking a balance between shape and form. Her practice begins with sketching, filling pages with linear forms which are then realised, in this latest series, on old book covers. The unpredictable nature of how ink or paint will take on old paper and the muted tones of paper and book covers enhances and frames the work.

She is influenced by modernist architecture, brutalist concrete structures and mid century design but also by mundane everyday objects, a wooden painted brick, a formica tabletop or a cooking pot.