SARAH CREAGEN

Sarah Creagen’s drawing practice focuses on figuration and narrative. Using graphite, ink, watercolour and oils, she layers and fragments the human body as a form of visual language for a range of interpersonal experiences and everyday moments. She views her work as intuitive conversation between the subject and the lines and gestures on paper that work to both obscure and define the figure.

The tentative line where one body begins and the other emerges is often the crux of her work. It is important to her that the marks she makes fluid and open. She tries not to assert control. For her, the play of directness and mutability of lines on paper creates a tension between the physicality of the medium and the vagueness of the figure(s). The marks search over and around the bodies alluding to themes of tenderness, closeness, and self-care as well as emotional instability and dissolution. The frailties of each representational form can be read as an embodied portrait as well as an account of a relationship or exchange between two individuals made visible only through frantic lines of motion.

Sarah Creagen is an artist currently based in Toronto, Ontario. She studied at OCAD University, where she received her BFA in 2011. Creagen attended a month long partially funded residency at the Vermont Studio Centre in 2013. Recent shows include That’s So Gay: Say It To My Face group exhibition at the Gladstone in 2013 and the Biennial Juried Exhibition at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant in 2014.

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