Sarah Kathryn Ahearn is a New England based artist working in many mediums including photography,
printmaking, drawing, and mixed media. Sarah was born in in 1974 and grew up in Maryland. She
concentrates on abstract improvisational monotypes and photography as modes of expression. Sarah
works in layers of images, colors, and textures; it is a way of seeing and communicating for her, much like
a visual language. Her primary focus is on the expression of her experiences and how she sees the world.
She was a swimmer from a very early age, which taught her the crucial elements of flow and cycles and
movement. She uses these elements in all her artwork exploring such themes as nature, life cycles, women
and women's bodies, sexuality, psychology, color expression, and finding her voice. Color, gesture,
texture, composition, and bold images are all important features in her art. Her mother was a librarian, and
her father a physicist with an interest in photography. Sarah followed in her father's footsteps starting to
take images in high school, becoming her first outlet for expression. A very shy child, color and
composition came very natural to her, and assured the need for expression. Sarah majored in art at
Kenyon College in Ohio, concentrating on photography and printmaking. After graduation she decided to
focus on social services work. After moving around the United States, she settled in Boston in 2000. She
frequently experienced depression and anxiety for many years making her unable to work. In her 30s, she
returned to school to get a master’s degree at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in
Expressive Therapies. After the death of a loved one, Sarah moved to New Hampshire and began to return
to her art as a focus. This not only enabled her to concentrate on her artwork exclusively for the first time
but gave her the ability to recover from depression. Her experience with mental illness has greatly
affected her life and informed her art. She now lives in Amherst, New Hampshire and has a studio in
Wilton, New Hampshire. Among the many awards she has received, she was awarded for her monotype
print in 2022 in the New England Printmakers exhibition in Portsmouth, NH. She also received honorable
mentions in 2021 and 2022 for the International Julia Margaret Cameron Women Photographers Award.
She is a member of the New Hampshire Art Association. Her work is in private collections around the
United States. When not doing art or swimming, Sarah can be found catching up on the updates of her
foster elephants in Kenya at Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, going for walks in nature, and attempting a new
dish for dinner.
My work is foremost about personal expression and giving voice to my experiences. It is working through questions and exploring emotions and experiences through color and composition. I rely on my intuition to find images in nature or make abstract creations that lead to expressing nature's cycles, the flow of life, and its mysteries. I work very quickly, with a feeling of urgency, to articulate emotions and moments through acrylic paint, gesture, and texture. I have an improvisational process in approaching all my work. I think in layers and work in overlapping thoughts and images. I do not know what I am going to create before I start. The elements of color and design are strong features in all of my work bringing forth meaning in visual poetry and spirituality. My artwork can take on many forms including printmaking, photography, drawing and mixed media. Although I work across many mediums the elements of flow and movement, life cycles, color, composition, transformation, women and women's bodies, and nature are consistent.
