EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
Sarah Leahy
Sarah Leahy is a New York based artist who creates paintings and constructions that observe people and spaces encountered during daily activities that are usually unnoticed.
Until now her images have been sourced from her own photographs and then transformed through a unique painting process she has developed of applying black India ink onto the surface of sanded clear plexiglass. Slowing, deliberatively she builds layer upon layer of delicate ink washes creating soft grays and deep blacks, while alternately removing areas of ink with sandpaper to yield luminous white. Darker areas are built up with ink while lighter areas are sanded out, allowing the viewer to see the wall surface through the translucent glass. Each piece of plexiglass is attached to the wall with screws through the surface or small nails at the edges to hold it in place. The overt materiality of the work; ink made of carbon soot and water, plexiglass made of extruded acrylic, steel hardware, contrasts with and heightens the atmospheric effect. The body of light refracting through the translucent acrylic glass combined with the luminous monochromatic tones of black to white, create a concentrated presence.
In late March the New York Times began a series, Those We’ve Lost, memorializing the victims of the coronavirus. Leahy began an ongoing series of 8” x 8” portraits of people profiled in that series, based upon the published photograph that families had given the Obituary department. In her series, The face of this: COVID Portraits, Leahy is using a waxed translucent rice paper, black India ink and water. She enlarges and crops the image to a head shot in an effort to make evident the humanity, liveliness and spirit in the faces.
Sarah Leahy has presented eight solo exhibitions at the Kim Foster Gallery in New York. She has participated in exhibitions at the Holden Gallery at The University of North Carolina, Piazza di Pietra Gallery in Rome, The Cello Gallery in London, The Mattatuck Museum in CT, The Katonah Museum of Art in NY, The Naples Art Association in FL, The Alexandria Museum of Art in LA, The Axis Gallery in CA, The University of North Carolina in DL, The Visual Arts Center in NJ, The Albright Knox Gallery in NY, The National Academy Museum in NY, Flowers East Gallery in London, The Bronx Museum of the Arts in NY, as well as Art Miami and Art Chicago. She has been the recipient of a grant from The New York State Foundation for the Arts, and is an ongoing studio recipient from The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. She received a Norfolk Fellowship from Yale University and a BA from Bennington College. Leahy’s work is in private collections in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Dallas, Pittsburg, as well as Canada and the UK.
