Biography

Sarah Swift was raised in coastal Rhode Island, and moved to NYC to receive her BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute of Art and Design in 2015. She exhibited work in shows throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, and won Best of Show at the 2016 TriBeCa Conception Events Exhibition.

Swift worked as Gallery Director of Hera Gallery in Wakefield, Rhode Island, and currently remains an active freelancing artist member. She has curated shows in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and NYC, and acted as Guest Juror for the Attleboro Museum of the Arts in 2017. She has been featured in Artscope Magazine, So Rhode Island Magazine, RI-GO Local Live, Root TV, and more.

She resides up and down the East Coast where the ocean and coastal forests deeply influence her work as a Freelance Artist. She is currently exhibiting her work across the country and creating large scale works for public and private clients.

Travel and exploration are also an underlying thread in her work. She has had the privilege to have solo-backpacked 29 countries throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia studying art history and architecture. She has driven 48 of the US states, and 18 National Parks and hopes to add more in 2024.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I grew up in Coastal Rhode Island; raised by two Marine Biologists who introduced me to a meaningful relationship with the earth as a young child. All of my work is in response to their pursuits of healthier forests and oceans, and a deeper public awareness of a sustainable ecological future. I use recycled and repurposed materials in my work, and I source my yarn from fair-trade Cooperatives, secondhand stores, or deadstock donations from the fashion industry (which currently creates some of the highest volumes of waste.) I also incorporate many "problem" materials like plastic bags, plastic drinking straws, fruit netting, plastic wrap, and large scale fabric like dyed bedsheets and old clothing that can no longer be donated.

These bodies of recycled fiber work explore the changing cycles of life within the organic world and our growing disassociation to our Earth, despite our deep primordial connection to it. My work explores the phenomena of botany and nature in contrast to "what gets left behind" from our human existence. Using recycled and repurposed materials, I explore our human impact on the Earth...our mark and memory; Our ideas - our trash. …Often, priorities of human convenience and success seem to outweigh a mindful relationship with our natural world. As a species living in a technological age, we often focus on material consumption, digital image, and personal wealth, operating with a false sense of entitlement to our natural world that can only hold on for so long.”