Fresh Paint
Inspiring new artworks, straight off the easel
Sarah Butterfield With its dreamy pastel hues, palm tree silhouettes and car headlights speeding into the night, Sarah Butterfield’s Oceans, Light and Palms XIV has a touch of Miami Vice to it. In fact, it was a return to another American hotspot – California, where the British artist had lived and worked as an architect in the 1970s – that first inspired this body of work. “I took our family to that place of dreams and a whole series of new paintings flooded my mind,” she explains. Collected together in her forthcoming solo exhibition Oceans, Lights and Beyond, Sarah’s recent works provide a much-needed dose of escapism for an audience largely confined to British shores over the last 18 months. “I hadn’t thought of my work as escapist, but I like the idea a lot,” she says. “We do need some form of escapism.” One of the aims of her paintings is to reveal beauty in unexpected places, whether that’s the Californian traffic in Oceans, Light and Palms XIV or a KFC restaurant just off the A27 in Hampshire. “When I capture these phenomena in my paintings, a feeling of escapism naturally follows as I hope the viewer can find the splendour of the menial or mundane process in their lives too.” Sarah’s perceptive paintings are backed by a sound knowledge of scientific theory, perhaps unsurprisingly as the daughter of the celebrated late medical researcher Sir John Butterfield. “Knowing some concepts helps you see perceptually,” she says, pointing to her interest in refracted light on water and the optical effects of complementary colours. “Think of Monet’s paintings of poppies in a grassy meadow,” she adds of the latter. “The increased luminosity of the red petals against the green grasses not only conveys a glow of light but the optical effect between these two complementary colours also even suggests the nodding movement of the heads of these flowers in the breeze.” Travel is another key aspect of Sarah’s work, yet the recent restrictions have given her a chance to reflect and refine paintings in readiness for the new exhibition. “Sometimes during lockdown, late in the evening, I would see a previously completed traffic painting I had seen around the house all day and would just pick up a brush and palette knife making gestural marks that captured what I had wanted to do much better than before.” Oceans, Lights and Beyond runs 2-6 November at Mall Galleries, London. www.sarahbutterfield.co.uk 14 Artists
& Illustrators
SARAH’S TOP TIP “If you are trying to wed two areas together, one of shade and one of sunlight, try adding a common colour to both mixes”
