This January we’ll have with us mixed media artist Sarah Ann Austin!
Sarah Ann Austin is a Raleigh based mixed media artist who makes historical photographic prints onto her hand-crafted cotton rag, abaca, and kozo papers. Sarah Ann’s technical and historical knowledge of traditional crafts is used in her everyday practice creating paper, prints, brushes, installations, and art objects that wonderfully capture the depth and many uses of natural resources. Sarah Ann’s statement of her work: “My work explores the complex relationships between craft culture and fine art through process and conceptual parallels of memory and object recognition. I’m drawn to objects that hold a memory space of my childhood trauma. I see them as objects that can link to a collective past. I reconfigure these objects through historical photographic methods with both contemporary and traditional papermaking techniques. In creating photograms of objects, I am capturing their distinct likeness and reclaiming them into new images that are beautifully and ornamental.” Sarah Ann was born in Flint, Michigan and received a BFA in Visual Communications and Studio Art from The University of Michigan and a MFA in Studio Art focusing in All forms of Photography, Sculpture, and BookArts at the University of Alabama. She has exhibited her Art in various group and solo exhibitions throughout the Triangle and nationally. You can learn more about Sarah Ann’s work with non-profits and upcoming classes at the Crafts Center at NC State, Artspace, Art-For-All, Baltimore Clayworks, and with Raleigh Arts on her website, www.SarahAnnAustin.com
