“Light’s fleeting reflections and projections are harnessed and contained in Sarah Sanford’s abstract screenprints, drawings and collages- the most ethereal imagery I’ve seen this year.” Susan Watt Grade
Sarah Sanford is an artist and art educator whose practice incorporates photography, printmaking, drawing and installation to create hidden worlds of biological landscapes and scientific abstractions. Capturing the physical nature of light is a dominant component to the imagery she creates. Drawn to its’ ethereal properties and transient nature, her work explores themes of time passage, impermanence and interconnectedness.
Sanford’s work bridges micro and macrocosmic worlds serving as reflection on the complexities of our existence and the mysteries of life. Trained as a printmaker, she uses traditional and alternative media and processes to investigate the changing surface of contemporary print in relationship to technology and the expanding field of print media in the post-digital age. Her imagery is intentionally connected to ideas surrounding the lens frequently resembling medical scans, x-rays and telescopic imaging. She often employs the halftone grid as a tool to manipulate and break down photographic images serving as context for the captured fleeting fragments of visual information we encounter in our daily lives. In her large-scale print-based installations, she frequently implements the grid as a visual tool for examining both single moments and our collective histories.
Sanford exhibits her work nationally and internationally. Past sites include Director’s Cut, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair; Rubicon Gallery, Dublin; London Contemporary Art Fair; Wrexham Print International, Yale College, Wales; Edinburgh Printmakers; School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Newman University, Wichita, KS; Strata Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; Mixografia, Los Angeles with participation in the invitational group exhibition, Printstallations, at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. Sanford has been the artist in resident at The Edinburgh Academy and the Taigh-Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Center, Scotland and a visiting artist at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Lacoste, France. Her work has been featured in publications that include the international print magazine, E-squared: Art + Science, New Linear Perspectives, The Hand Magazine, Art Ascent and The California Printmaker.
Sanford is a faculty member in the Art department at University of California Santa Cruz. She holds a Masters in Fine Art in Printmaking from the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland and a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from the joint program of Case Western Reserve University & The Cleveland Institute of Art. Her professional memberships include exhibiting with Edinburgh Printmakers, California Society of Printmakers and the Los Angeles Printmakers. In addition she presents lectures and printmaking workshops at various institutions that include Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop, Scotland; Indiana University, Bloomington; and the Academy of Art, San Francisco. She works out of her studio amongst the Redwoods of Bonny Doon, CA nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains.