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Sara Scribner (B. 1982 Fremont, California) is a figurative painter living in Oklahoma. She earned a BFA in painting from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She has exhibited in museums and galleries across the US and in Europe, including European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM) museum in Barcelona, Spain for Pintando Hoy curated by Didi Menendez, Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas, and RJD Art Gallery in Bridgehampton, NY. Her work has been published in American Art Collector, Southwest Art Magazine, PoetsArtists, Professional Artists Magazine and at Artsy, Huffington Post, Fine Art Connoisseur, Austin Chronicle as well as the San Francisco Chronicle. She has been selected as an ARC Salon finalist in 2013, 2015, and 2018. Collections: The Jim and Jennifer Seale Collection | James and Jenny Lawson | Linda and Greg Stong | Bryce S. Kennedy and Jill M. Kennedy | Jamie Odiorne
Q&A
What inspires you?
What narrative is behind your work? I like to offer a bit of an escape from reality in my work. I want to transport the viewer to a place that feels a little magical. Like most kids, I enjoyed fairy tales, I guess I just never grew out of thinking about a world where people could communicate with animals or have magical powers. Lately, I have been thinking more about creating dreamscapes. My painting, She Felt at Peace in Her Canopy of Dreams, is the first piece I painted with that in mind. I wanted to capture the moment when you wake up from a dream. When you open your eyes but can still see the other world you came from in your mind’s eye.
them. When the ground is covered in snow and the world becomes icy and white, I want to paint that. I find myself taking lots of photos of flowers and landscapes that I later incorporate into my paintings. Sometimes nature offers me a feeling that I want to recreate. For example, I was at the park with a few months back. It was a foggy day, and I saw two trees that had kind of grown together. The way their bare branches reached for one another made me think of a doorway into another world. It felt eerie and foreboding. That feeling led me to paint, With Her back to the Indigo Forest. How have you developed your career?
What is your background? I am mixed. My mother is Mexican and my father is of Irish descent. I grew up in the SF Bay Area where there is such wonderful diversity. I feel lucky to know so many cultures because of my upbringing. Do you ever venture out of your creative process? I feel like I am currently venturing out of my comfort zone. I just finished a painting, Hannah with Flowers, that is a bit different from what I have painted in the past. I am exploring now. I am pushing myself to become a better painter but I am also pushing myself to try new things.
I am inspired by nature. When the flowers are in bloom I want to paint
My husband and I are both painters. We met while we were in art school in San Francisco. After we graduated we decided to move to a small town in Oklahoma. We knew we needed to develop our skills and build a body of work and we needed to do it in a place where we didn’t have to have a regular job. We found a wonderful building where we could live and paint and we got to work! Moving to a small town allowed us to travel to shows and visit markets we may not have had an opportunity to do living in a high rent city like San Francisco. Through our travels, we have met many great galleries and artists that have found a lot of wonderful opportunities through them.
Front Cover: Photo of Sara Scribner courtesy of Shane Scribner Left: She Felt At Peace in Her Canopy of Dreams Oil on panel 60x48 2018 Above: With Her Back to The Indigo Forest Oil on aluminum 12x24 2019 Back Page: Hannah With Flowers Oil on aluminum 16x24 2019