CV
CV
SARA GENN (b. 1972, Canada)
Sara Genn is a Canadian-born visual artist who specializes in color field painting and installation. Based in New York City since 2003, Genn established a studio in Palm Springs, California in 2018. Mentored by her father, a Canadian landscape painter, Genn visited the wilds of British Columbia to practice plein-air painting techniques; studying moving light, eye control, designing in nature and mastering materials. She holds a BFA in painting from Queen’s University, and has been painting and exhibiting without interruption since 1991.
Genn’s work focuses on the technical, material and aesthetic nuances of how color is perceived, preferred and organized. She does this while referencing the principles of her Japanese maternal heritage and its aesthetic of wabi-sabi: asymmetry, asperity (the roughness or irregularity of things,) simplicity, austerity and intimacy -- all of which strive for sensations of balance, rhythm, counterpoint and a defiant softness. This aesthetic philosophy acknowledges that objects and experiences are most beautiful when they evoke a feeling of spiritual longing. It strives to offer simultaneously, a place of visual shelter and excitement; and to occupy space with objects that blur the signifiers of gender, craft and monuments. As much as these works seek to embody color field foundations and to straddle sensations of weightiness and weightlessness, they’re also concerned with tactile materiality, light and shadow casting, and surface illusions. The supersoft-flatness of poured and saturated, light-bouncing spaces and their edges are meticulously created freehand; no tape is used.
Genn’s work has been featured on American billboards for Nissan Infiniti, The Toronto Arts Council, in film and television and in the New York Times, House Beautiful, Create!, House and Home, NYLON Japan, Town and Country, W, Domino, American Art Collector, New York Magazine, LONY, and Tatler, as well as in the Rizzoli publication New York Parties; Private Views and for the Faberge Big Egg Hunt. Her work resides in both private and public collections including New York Presbyterian Hospital, Palm Springs Art Museum and MCASD.
EDUCATION
BFA (Painting) Queen's University, Kingston, ON, 1994
SELECTED RECENT SOLO + JOINT EXHIBITIONS
2024
Graphic Analogies, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Ardent Flame, Dimmitt Contemporary Art, Austin, TX
2023
Infinite Promise, Winston Wachter, Seattle, WA
Intersect Palm Springs, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
2022
How to Build a Sky, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
2021
Looking for Colour, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Untitled art, Miami Beach, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
Shelter in Place, Winston Wachter, Seattle, WA
2020
Everything Will Be Okay, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
SELECTED RECENT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Art Toronto, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Dallas Art Fair, Dimmitt Contemporary, Houston + Austin, TX
2023
Dallas Art Fair, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
Intersect Aspen, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
2022
Untitled art, Miami Beach, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
Art Toronto, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London, UK
Summer Times, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Seattle Art Fair, Winston Wachter Seattle, WA
XX: Twenty Year Exhibition, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
Dallas Art Fair, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
2021
Dallas Art Fair, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London, UK
Art Toronto, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Shift, Dimmitt Contemporary Art, Houston, TX
2020
Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London, UK
Seattle Desconstructed Art Fair, Winston Wachter, Seattle, WA
Finalists Exhibition - Luxembourg Art Prize 2020, The Pinacothèque, Luxembourg, LU
The Intercepting Nature of Colour + Form, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC, Canada
2019
Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London, UK
Untitled Art, Miami Beach 2019, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle, WA
A Walk In The Forest, Sara Nightingale Gallery, Sag Harbor, NY
2018
Emergence, Dimmitt Contemporary Art, Houston, TX
2017
New Directions, (Selection: Ruth Erickson, Associate Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston) Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY
Abstract: Design Showcase, (Art Advisor: Christopher Fadden) Kimoto Gallery, Vancouver, BC
That Night In Toronto, (Curator: Danielle Krysa, The Jealous Curator) Mayberry Fine Art, Toronto, ON
2016
Investigating Abstraction Today, (Curator: Kristin Peterson Edwards, KPEArts) LeClerc Contemporary, Norwalk CT
Free Arts, Free Arts NY, New York, NY
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Palm Springs Art Museum
New York Presbyterian Hospital
Toronto Dominion Bank
Canaccord Genuity
Peace Arch Hospital
Surrey Memorial Hospital
Toronto Arts Council
Queen’s University Archives