about the artist

Sarah Lees

Based in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

Born in Coventry, Sarah settled in Carmarthenshire to study Wildlife Illustration. She then worked freelance for a number of years before returning to Carmarthen School of Art where she now teaches fine art and printmaking whilst continuing to paint and exhibit.

Sarah’s work focuses primarily on the visual language of the land and how it has been shaped. Her landscapes are almost empty of human presence, showing only the raw design left behind: stripped back boundaries, thickets and thin stands, tracks and river bends. She is preoccupied with the edge of the land where cultivation and wildness coincide, and revisits favourite places repeatedly to try and capture what makes landscape so compelling.  She paints on wooden panel, paying close attention to surface detail and overpainting with delicate, muted glazes to achieve depth. She also works back with imprints and marks to give expression, paying close attention to the finished surface. These surfaces also show signs of manipulation, with details scratched into the panel.

Sarah’s work is held in collections both here at home and abroad. She is a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy, and this summer she won the Ailsa Owen Memorial Prize at the Museum of Modern Art in Machynlleth.