Sarah Spackman is a contemporary figurative artist living and working in Oxford where she has a studio in the Edith Road Workshops.

 New still-life paintings can be seen on the Collections, Personal Landscape, and the Store Cupboard pages. Everyday objects are often overlooked. In spending time really looking at these ordinary things, I become more and more fascinated by them.

Space is what interests me: the intimate space of the still-life table, the great expanse of space in the landscape and how it surrounds   the objects that inhabit it. I paint the space and atmosphere around and between objects, which is part of what makes them be. Looking is the most important part of the process and, whilst looking, I begin to draw  or paint directly onto the paper or canvas. Starting with exploratory line and blocks of colour and developing more definition in the painting as the work progresses. A series of work can evolve from exploring a particular subject.  I work in oil paint for its great flexibility and subtlety of colour and also in watercolour for its immediacy and fluidity.

 September 2010

 Strength of drawing and the delicate and subtle use of colour are two of the main qualities recognised in her work. She applies the guiding principle that good drawing is the basis of good painting and that colour should be used to enhance the organisation and definition of observed space and form. She paints in both oil and watercolour.

Sarah graduated from Camberwell School of Art in 1981 and since 1986 has worked full time as an artist and exhibited regularly, mainly in England and Ireland. Her work is in many private collections and a number of paintings have also be selected for the contemporary art collection of the AIB Bank.