sarah Clarke

Hey there! Thanks for making your way to my little corner of the internet. If you’ve made it this far you probably already know I’m a Canadian oil painter who specializes in landscape painting and likes to focus on the rendering of light. I live in rural Southern Ontario with my husband, our five year old girly and a baby boy who is growing like.a weed and keeping my hands full- hence the lack of new work currently!

I’ve always been an old soul, I love deep conversations and good food. In case you know me on a personal level you can never go wrong gifting me; sunflowers, facials or quality pottery. I love the colour green, eating sushi, or potato (in any of its forms). I listen to a handful of podcasts every week - enjoy a good book especially on rainy days, drink coffee in the am and tea in the pm (though my husband would tell you I only make tea in order to hold it, not drink it). I know no one asked me but I think we need more connection and less distraction, our attention is one of the most valuable tools we have to connect with others and far too much of it is being directed towards our screens where the bulk of what we’re absorbing is negative. I aim to use my art to draw attention to beauty and light.

artist statement

I’ve always struggled to write my artists statements in a way that’s felt authentic to me, until one day when I heard Martha Beck (author, coach, artist) say, “really there’s only one message in every painting or drawing I’ve ever done in my life and that message is ‘look, look- pretty! That’s pretty. I’m kind of like a crow with shiny objects (…) they just want pretty and I’m that kind of painter.”

I’m that kind of painter too. I think what really clicked for me is the part where she says “look, look”… it’s what toddlers say when they’re discovering the world for the first time, there’s an awe and sense of connection in noticing something and sharing it with someone else. I believe that drive to say “look, look” is a large part of what makes an artist. When I’m in the right headspace I can see beauty easily and everywhere and the thing that makes me want to create art is my desire to say “look, look”, notice this, take the time to really see this thing that I think is worthy of your attention and maybe your admiration too.

And it’s just been in these past few years especially that I’ve come to realize why I so desperately want to bring attention to beauty, to say “look, look…. Pretty”. I haven’t always felt like beauty for the sake of beauty has been a valid reason for me to create, but now I’m fairly certain in my knowing that there is worthiness there. I feel as if so much of our collective societal focus and energy is being directed towards negativity, darkness, ugliness and fear and it’s non-stop from the time we wake up in the morning to the time we close our eyes. As a result of this I believe I’ve sensed a collective heaviness, a weariness, a dis-ease among us. So if, as an artist and creator, I can say to someone through my work, “hey you… it’s okay, look at this beauty I saw in the world still …breathe easy for a minute, take in the way the light plays in the trees- it’s still there… just notice; there’s still light, there’s still hope, there’s still good, there’s still beauty”. If I can turn someone else’s focus away from the gloom and they can share in my awe, I’ll have succeeded…heck it’s even a success if I’m just reminding myself while I paint.