University: Newcastle University
Graduation Year: 2004
By elegantly combining the subjects of human form and water, Sarah Harvey studies how a body can be a ground for both insecurity and fantasy. Her paintings span from realistic to abstract; the ripples of the water sometimes only brushing the limb of the figure and at other times distorting the entire composition into striking, saturated pools of flesh and blue. Harvey emphasises underlying power-relations surrounding the gaze of a viewer by consistently giving the viewer a voyeuristic, high angle perspective of her scenes - as if standing on the edge of a pool, a puddle or a lake. By letting the water become a subject in its own right through dominant pattern and light, Harvey brings attention to how the medium through which the body is seen is often responsible for making it both alluring and disfigured.
She studied at both Chelsea School of Art, London, and Newcastle University, graduating in 2004. While at Newscastle University, Harvey won the 2003 Bartlett Travel Scholarship and with it, embarked on a trip to Italy that would inspire much of her now established practice. In 2010 she took part in a residency at the Signy and Olaf Willums Art Foundation in Pourrieres, France. Participating in a vast number of exhibitions over the past twenty years, Harvey’s first two solo shows were in 2006, at Sesame Gallery, London and Paul Gullotti Gallery, Perth, Australia. Since then she has had solo exhibitions across the United Kingdom, Australia and twice with Collectors Contemporary in Singapore, in the years 2011 and 2014.
A versatile talent, Harvey’s pieces exist in a number of public collections and publications both in the United Kingdom and abroad. Her name carries an impressive list of awards. As well as being shortlisted for many others, in 2007 she came second in the Insight Investment Newcomers Award, Royal Academy of Arts, London and was the first place, Grand Prix Winner of the Art Periscope Award. In 2011 she won the LICC London International Creative Competition and the year before received an honourable mention.
"My paintings of figures floating are predominantly self portraits. I aim to create paintings that arouse both a sense of well being and pleasure, whilst simultaneously suggesting notions of insecurity, fantasy and sexuality. Entirely suspended by the water, the human forms are fragmented by the ripples and swirls created by the water, abstracting them, and often with implausible results such as the appearance of disfiguration or distortion. I have become increasingly excited about the abstract elements in these works, and the interplay between light, colour and water. The emerging patterns are becoming more apparent and dominant, drawing the eye not only towards the main focal point of the human form, but also to the surrounding areas, which are of equal significance.
I am greatly influenced by Francis Bacon's Carcass and crucifixion paintings, and of course by the work of Jenny Saville. Both of these figurative artists are intensely intrigued by the imagery of flesh - in both ugly and magnificently beautiful ways."