Sarah Savage is a 25-year-old printmaker working primarily in screenprinting and linocut, with additional exploration in fabric and textiles. She grew up in a small, Southern town outside of Athens GA, where her early creative life was shaped by interest in nature and animals, divination, tarot, and astrology. These interests were sparked by her grandmother, who printed her horoscopes for birthdays and holidays and gifted her a palmistry handbook at a young age. Sarah has been studying art since early childhood but her academic path has been more nonlinear. Struggling with the art of balancing school and mental health, she stepped away from college for several years before deciding to finish her degree in studio art at Georgia College & State University. A Virgo by birth, her work reflects an ongoing interest in nature, intuition, and personal transformation.
Project Statement
Heart Strings is a body of mixed media work that blossomed from several encounters with loss and heartbreak. The installation is a diptych consisting of two heart shapes: Bleeding Heart and Healing Heart. Bleeding Heart is a colorful fabric collage composed of overlapping screen prints, yarn, and acrylic. Several deer rib bones are fastened around 2 layered doilies (gifted to me by my grandmother and great grandmother) with a small, porcelain fawn sewn into the center. Healing Heart is composed of eight screenprints of tarot cards featuring a fawn as the subject. Each print is based upon a real tarot card intentionally pulled during the “healing heart” spread and printed on paper doilies. The shape is completed by several red threads strung between each doily and one central screen print of an anatomical heart. Heart Strings explores themes of heartbreak, loss, love, and healing while also delving into a more spiritual conversation about divination, and my personal interest in reading tarot. The repeating image of the fawn serves as a stand-in for myself. This allows the series to function more broadly as a self portrait and also as a visual representation of the idea that the hurt we experience is what prepares us for the love and healing to come.
Artist Statement
I am an artist specializing in printmaking because I’m drawn to its fluidity. There is always something to go wrong or a happy accident that can make or break a piece. Some of my best discoveries have been the result of mistakes, especially with my recent work in mixed media and collage. In terms of imagery, my earliest childhood drawings were always of trees and animals and my choice in subject matter has stayed the same well into adulthood. But what has changed is my commitment to perfection. I am beginning to stray from the notion that every finished piece of work has to be perfect. My process includes submerging myself with the work of other artists whether it be sketches, finished work, poetry, or paintings. With a particular interest in nature and its spirituality, the work of Hilma af Klint serves as a monumental source of inspiration for me. My focus is on nature and how we are connected to it spiritually. My interest is in memory, violence, love, hurt, and connectedness and my craft explores how the good and bad come together to invent something beautiful and chaotic. I mostly work in printmaking and textiles, and my work focuses on blending techniques and processes to create something new and exciting. Mistakes are something I now choose to embrace and my art is a reflection of that.