An Artist’s Passion Compels Her to Express Her Vision through Acrylics
ML interviews Sarah Winkler about her journey painting acrylic abstract landscapes.
WINTER PEAKS SARAH WINKLER 48 x 48 x 2.25 inches Acrylic on panel sunvalleyart.com sarahwinkler.com
THE ARTIST
TRAVELING CHILDHOOD
“I was born in Manchester, England, but grew up largely abroad due to my dad’s career in aviation. I spent my childhood in Malawi, Brunei and Borneo.“
PASSION FOR LANDSCAPE
“I studied in England, and I came to America and studied here and then kind of self-taught, just creating my own style and techniques and determining how I was going to portray this sort of passion for the landscape in my own words, my own vision. I found acrylic paint to be the most versatile, in the sense that I can create a lot of textures. Oftentimes I’ll mix minerals and crushed rock and powders that I’ve collected from the landscape into the paint. Working in layers to resemble geological strata, each layer is information on why the landscape looks the way it does. Color I will sample from the place—from the skies, the plant material, the rocks. I’m color-matching to the location. And that’s how I can get the landscape to look familiar, because they’re quite abstract in the end, but I think the colors resonate with people, and the textures.”
SENSE OF WONDER
“The mountains are really interesting because they’ve got this rugged beauty, but they’re challenging, and they’re also very enchanting. There’s that element in my work, this almost fantastical or fairy-tale-like quality to it. I feel like it’s a magical place, another world. And I hope to bring a little bit of that through in the paintings too, the sense of wonder and discovery.”
NEXT
Sun Valley Contemporary Gallery in Ketchum, Idaho, will feature new works from Winkler’s Rocky Mountain series at its December 26 art walk.
