top of page

SARAH SUMMERS
ALTARS

This body of work came out of an exchange, a mutual relationship of give and take between myself and my garden.  Gardens are often associated with tameness and control, but the one I look after runs ahead of my plans, with an agency that acts on me and catches me in its cycles.

The subjects in my paintings come with personal stories.  I painted a particular nasturtium plant, which slowly grew over winter until by spring it was taller than me, a webbed microcosm of dark exuberance.  When I sat before it, it rose above me like a mountain.  I painted the moon, pulling me into the vortex of its gaze.  I painted carrot flowers, an unexpected delight, white with a heady scent.  I painted grassy tangles, small kingdoms under every step.  Looking up and down and around, I see archways and passages, bowers and portals.

Certain spots become altars, in-between places of giving and receiving.

I think about the relationship between attending and attention and tending.  The garden is a place that I tend to, and am tended by in turn.  I witness the garden’s movement, stillness, death, and rebirth.  A place of holding that exists beyond my passing presence, drawing me in.

Sarah Summers paints and draws from Melbourne, Australia.  In her work she explores the poetry of the everyday in her home and garden, with a particular interest in the way darkness and light alter the familiar.  Since graduating from Curtin University with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2016, Sarah has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions around Australia, and was a finalist in the Len Fox Painting Award in 2019.  Her work is held in private collections internationally.


B. 1990 in Hobart, TAS
Lives and works in Melbourne, VIC
 

EDUCATION
2016    Bachelor of Fine Art, Curtin University, WA
 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022    Altars, A.K Bellinger Gallery, Inverell, NSW
2021    Blue, falling and rising, A.K Bellinger Gallery, Inverell, NSW
2021    Fear not the harsh winter, Rubicon ARI, North Melbourne, VIC
2019    Evening spread against my eyes, Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Abbotsford, VIC
 

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021    Christmas Show, A.K Bellinger Gallery, Inverell, NSW
2020    Unleashed, Pea Green Boat, Brunswick, VIC
           Night Shadows, A.K Bellinger Gallery, Inverell, NSW
2019    Friends and Family, Daine Singer, Fitzroy, VIC
           Glow, Neon Parlour, Thornbury, VIC
           Len Fox Painting Award, Castlemaine Art Museum, Castlemaine, VIC
           The Rubicon Experiment, Rubicon ARI, Melbourne, VIC
           Outside In, Art, Not Apart, New Acton, ACT (Curated by Chloe Mandryk)
           50 Squared Art Prize, Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy, VIC
2018    Behind the Curtain, Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Abbotsford, VIC (curated by Julian Cobb)
           Aberration, The Burrow, Fitzroy, VIC
           Out of Place, Aeso Studios, Fitzroy, VIC
2017    Between Black and White, Canberra ArtWorks, ACT
2015    MERGE, Belconnen Arts Centre, Belconnen, ACT


AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2022    Q Bank Gallery, Queenstown, TAS (Upcoming)
2019    Finalist, Len Fox Painting Award, Castlemaine, VIC
           The Pickers Hut Artist Residency, Glaziers Bay, TAS


GRANTS
2019    Small Projects Grant 2018-2019, Yarra City Arts, Yarra City Council


PUBLICATIONS
2019    Rebecca Blake, Outside In, Exhibition Essay, ANCA Art Bus, Art, Not Apart

bottom of page