Sarah Gutwirth
Cold Light of Day, 2022
Oil on panel
10 x 22"

About the work
My latest body of work I call Natural Philosophy, the pre-modern term for Natural Science. These latest paintings use a kind of collage of painted images but I complicate the space by working with a combination of flat and deep space. I hope to create in them a sense of a narrative that remains mysterious, calling the viewer to interpret how the images relate to each other and construct meaning.

This year I have transitioned to a format in which I start compositions with a grid. This allows me to employ elements central to the content of my work: juxtaposition of landscape and still life; drawing from the history of art; drawing from the conceptual history of taxonomy and collection; playing with a pre-scientific taxonomy of resemblance; exploring the overlap between natural form, fine art, and decorative arts. The grid gives me the freedom to use a less literal space, one that can become more abstract and which fits into my continuing attraction to shallow spaces. The less literal space is a visual analogy to the kind of poetic, non-linear narrative aspect of the imagery.

Bio
Sarah Gutwirth received her BFA and BA in painting in 1978 from a joint program of Reed College and the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland OR. Her MFA in painting is from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1985. In 2017 she was nominated for the prestigious Joan Mitchell Prize for Painting. She has received grants from Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Murray State University and United University Professions at SUNY. She has had 20 one and two person exhibits over the last thirty-one years and has had work in numerous group shows. Her work has been shown in seven states. She has paintings is in several private and University collections, including the People's Education Press in Beijing. She held three tenure track teaching positions, receiving tenure at two. She retired in 2017 as Full Professor of Painting Emerita at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. She has travelled widely and lived in France. She recently moved to Philadelphia where she was born and raised.

www.sarahgutwirth.com