
Sarah Burwash, Wind Song, 2016. (detail)
Wind Song
Billboard by Sarah Burwash
January and February 2017
Burwash’s human landscapes appear as outlying settlements in which she is researching the realm of physical experience, including but not limited to, struggle, hard work, and failure. Casting aside emphasis on physical perfection and prescribed behaviours, these human figures achieve grace through displays of laborious feats in combination with intimate demonstrations of emotional fragility and strength. These figures do not conform to gendered behaviour, but rather confront representations of the female subject, and explore new locales of emotional vulnerability. The imagery in Burwash’s scenes constitutes a delicate balance of her own lived experience and speculative thinking about human life on earth.
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Sarah Burwash grew in up in Rossland, B.C. and graduated from the University of British Columbia Okanagan in 2009 with an interdisciplinary BFA. Working in a variety of media from painting and animation, to ceramics and installation, Sarah’s work most often takes form in narrative watercolour drawings. Her work is included in private and public collections internationally and has been shown in Canada, USA and Europe. She has participated in residencies across North America and abroad. Currently she is doing a residency at Andrea Zittel’s Wonder Valley Experimental Living Cabin in Joshua Tree, CA. Burwash is based in Nova Scotia, working full time as an artist and freelance illustrator.