BIO
Sarah Chavez is an artist endlessly inspired by the quirkiness of the world around her. Working primarily in oil paint, she explores a wide range of painting subjects including still life, portraiture/figurative, as well as landscapes. She studied Studio Arts & Art History at Kansas State University. Sarah grew up in Wichita, KS where she currently lives with her husband, Jerraldo, dog, Archie, and cat, Lizard.
Please follow me on Instagram @_sarah_chavez_
ARTIST STATEMENT
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a painter interested in memory, nostalgia, and exploring the fine line between reality and imagination. I have always correlated memories & feelings to objects and colors. I approach my pieces as though stepping into an alternate reality, as I analyze the way in which scenes and objects can interact with one another. Ultimately this interaction can tell a story about who we are as individuals of this time and age. In my recent work, I’ve been exploring these new worlds by taking either a preconceived idea, or one discovered in the process, and overlapping ideas to create open-ended narratives, often done in a whimsical way. The genre of magical realism heavily influences my work: the ordinary with the extraordinary, reality and unreality. I love using bright colors, different textures, and lush maximalism with traditional motifs like still life to tell a story that is intimate to me, yet also relatable to the viewer. Books are a reoccurring totem in my work, and act as a creative vessel for ideas to be poured into and then poured back out of; re-imagined, recycled. Juxtaposing pop culture references with the conventional or “old-fashioned” is a contrast that I explore to further illustrate our unique similarities and differences with the past. I aim to preserve small moments, artifacts or scenes of every-day life in a fantastical & fun way, while enabling the viewer to connect their own experiences with the subject.
