Discovering artist, Sara-J

It must have been in about 1997 that I first discovered artist, Sara-J.

I was working at the time as marketing manager for a newly formed firm of consulting actuaries and our offices were in the popular V&A Waterfront and directly opposite the Red Shed, a vast warehouse space housing a variety of crafters and artists.

I trundled off one lunch time, on the hunt for lunch, and found a small stall in the Red Shed selling the most vivid, witty and wildly delicious etchings I’d ever seen. They were created by Sara-J - and I came home with two.

Indulgence

Tropical Adventure

I was at an interesting crossroad in my life and Sara-J's work really spoke to me - and since that time I’ve acquired several more etchings...

Decadent Duck

Lemon Drops

Last year, I finally commissioned Sara-J, to do an oil painting for me. At the same time I asked her a little more about herself and why she paints what she does.

“I paint because I am an artist. I'm inspired by where my life takes me every day and the people I meet and care about. I see the world differently, and feel passionately about aspects of the human condition. I hope that my paintings bring courage and humour to women seeking to express themselves freely, without censorship or oppression. I tend to use humour and colour as tools to mask inhibition and painful experiences, and to reflect pleasure, the joy of life, sexuality, relationships, and family life. My commissioned work often does the same for my collectors. The actual core of my work hinges on the human form. Drawing live models and reflecting real people, and myself, in the images of my work. Of course, if I could express myself in words as I can on canvas, I'd be a writer.”

Favourite Reflection

Hat Box

“Each of my paintings, like the one I've done for you, can be broken down into different elements including the characters, objects, events, etc., depicted.”

Of Madames De Die, a painting I quietly covet, Sara-J says, “Madames de Die – like your commission - can be broken down into different elements including the characters, objects, events, etc., depicted. The two ladies on the left - the jewellery shop owner and the notary. Me, the artist, on the right, admiring the scorpion we caught on the way to Xmas dinner, the glasses noted and enjoyed by all. The wine, local and delicious. The rest speaks for itself. But that's the idea. You may also notice other emotional elements. The artist still something of a glamorous outsider, the Madames vaguely unimpressed but nonetheless comfortable, reflecting my own sense of exclusion rather than their warmness, for example.”

Madames De Die

An exhibition of Sara-J's work in Die, France

I observed that over the years her work has changed as she’s moved from etchings to working in rich and vibrant oils.

Sara-J says, “Since coming to the Netherlands to be reunited with my childhood sweetheart, my career has taken on a very different form. I've moved away from mass producing etchings with master printers to focus on working with oils and more intimate viewings and solo exhibitions.”

I noted that one seldom sees her work in galleries to which she responded, “Apart from contacts with a limited number of galleries, my main outlet has been my website.”

To all my female blog readers, I urge you to hurry over there and take a look around. You will be delighted, amused and inspired because Sara-J knows how to touch the core of a woman, she knows and understands the full experience of being a woman - from the pain and sadness, to the vibrancy and the bodacious, succulent wildness. And oh go on, buy a picture – you know you want to!

My newly commissioned painting...

An observation of her pain

Have you ever touched a point of pain in the world - pain so sharp, so brittle that it keeps cutting at you long after you’ve moved away from it, having somehow “burned” you with its icy intensity?

These points of pain inevitably stem from people who have been deeply hurt in their lives. Yet often they don’t acknowledge their pain and instead focus on their ego, their self, as a means of running from the pain, while their pain, in a machine gun spatter, is sprayed outward, often injuring others.

I recently met someone who was filled with pain.

I knew from the start that something was wrong when, on being introduced to me, she immediately dismissed me – by repeating everyone else’s name as she was introduced to them and taking one look at me and looking away with no mention of my name. There was something about my energy that “frightened” her. I didn’t see it as an offensive gesture or as being about me, but as the first sign of something not quite right.

As the morning progressed I listened as this woman “held court”, telling us about herself and her work. Words sprang from her mouth as though from a boiling geyser under immense pressure. She had a story to tell and, by god, we would listen!

“My work is an exploration of the free sex, sex for sale, prostitution that’s delivered to our doors each day via the newspaper. And I thought it was illegal here yet there it is, these ads in the entertainment column. “Hot young thing available, with extras. Your place or mine.” My art is my response to them. I snigger, jibe, cringe. Of course, it explores my own sexuality too, particularly given I’ve passed my own sell by date.”

Does a woman ever pass her sell by date, I wondered. A woman is so very much more than just her sexuality. And yet even as she ages, sexuality lives within a woman as part of her essence. Woman is woman is woman. How sad that this woman, who looked eternally young, was petite, attractive and vivacious, believed she was past it, no longer sexually attractive.

I listened as she dismissed or attempted to negate anything I offered to the conversation, constantly misunderstanding me in a way that was unconsciously deliberate. She had clearly taken an instant dislike to me, which was, of course, her prerogative, but which I also realised came from some place within herself that was screaming in rage and agony.

I pondered as she spoke about her creativity, her god-self and the denial of her ego. I mused as she trivialized those “modern gurus” who speak of their journeys towards healing or enlightenment through the experiences of their own pain. “They chose that pain,” she announced, “and won’t let go – I find it so draining.”

She spoke with all the right words of a person on a journey towards wholeness and enlightenment, she had the words of “spiritual speak” but there was a vast gap between her words and her reality. And it struck me too that her "spiritual speak" was very much stuck in the "vital" or physical plane.

I suppose looking at her superficially one might have seen a person who was full of herself, arrogant, opinionated – bloated with her own self importance. But those “traits” struck me as symptoms of something else.

Reaching out to touch her energy was like encountering shards of multicoloured glass – the colours invited you to touch, but the touch cut deeply. Peering beyond the surface it struck me that there was so much insecurity and so much fear - and within that fear, swimming furiously in the maelstrom, the most overwhelming pain, bundles of undealt with baggage. And she was running from it as hard and as fast as she could.

At the time I couldn’t put it all together – because part of her persona included sparkle, energy, excitement – and I like people and I like hearing their stories – and I prefer to see the best in them.

But it was later, when I sat in the peace of my home that I felt the dark sludge that had been left by the energetic encounter clawing at me. And the defining moment, the absolute recognition you might say, happened when I looked at her art on the web. In telling her own story one sees images of anger, sorrow, resentment, rage and degradation. The colours are vivid and garish, slashed and splashed across her canvas like dripping wounds. Each woman’s face depicts a hopelessness or an emptiness, or is hidden, while her womanhood is portrayed as a vivid gash.

But I owe her a debt of gratitude, because my own response to the encounter was to paint, something I’ve not done for a while, to cleanse away the pain that been projected at me. I entitled the piece Heart of Woman.

Heart of Woman