The Arts Club presents new paintings by Cologne-based artist Sarah Buckner, marking her first solo show in London. Buckner’s paintings fuse inspiration from real-life encounters with her imagination, resulting in distinctively dream-like, atmospheric scenes charged with emotional potency.
Dancing between the figurative and abstract, Buckner’s works explore the story-telling potential of painting. Influenced by subjective reading of literature and theoretical sources, they offer glimpses of the artist’s personal life and subconscious, each composition becoming a fragment of a much larger story. Narratives in her paintings are drawn from a plethora of influences, from literature, film, fables, personal experiences or observations, with most recent inspiration sparked from the people and places visited during and after her studies under renowned figurative painter Peter Doig. Imbued with feelings and traces from encounters across Morocco, Peru, Bolivia, Thailand, Italy and the U.S, the paintings portray a spectrum of emotion, from moments of anxiety, shame and confusion to playfulness and hope.
Buckner’s artistic process is often one of spontaneity, where chance plays a guiding factor in the development of the compositions. However, the figures and scenes she depicts appear precisely observed and layered in meaning. Ghostly yet childlike, Buckner’s characters are defined by their surreal undertones: neither real nor imaginary, they come to life in the space in-between. Frolicking across the canvas, their pointed, expressive faces give nothing away. Female figures are a recurring motif in the artist’s practice, often in pastoral settings or enigmatic activities – sometimes in historical or mythologizing costumes, sometimes nude. Meanwhile, the painterly, whimsical backgrounds often play host to seemingly incongruous objects, such as a sock and buskin; in Buckner’s dreamscapes, symbols can be many things simultaneously, signifying opposite meanings without contradiction.
A distinctive palette defines Buckner’s work, lending them their otherworldly quality and negating them from a clear sense of time or place. The artist explains in a recent interview: “Over the years, I have developed my own personal palette, which of course continues to evolve. It’s important to me to find the right tones to ‘sing the song’ I want to sing, so to speak.” Through a gouache-like treatment of oil paint, Buckner’s fluid yet intuitive approach to the medium transports viewers to new fantastical spheres.
The exhibition is curated by Amelie von Wedel and Pernilla Holmes of Wedel Art, with special thanks to Esther Schipper Gallery.
The Arts Club
40 Dover St, London W1S 4NP, United Kingdom