The Perfectly Moody Collages, Paintings, & Photography of Brooklyn’s Sarah Zar

Got any favorite cafes, bookstores, or other nooks or crannies in Brooklyn that are good places to hang out, read, draw? I’ve got my go-to coffee shop for my morning ritual drawing session & really love that ritual of walking there, finding my little corner, and doing my thing …

I love that ritual too, but here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, time is so much more precious, so my practice has become much more private. I hoard the moments in my studio.  I like to lock the door, brew up a nice dark cup of Thor (a blend made by Oslo Cafe down the street) and paint up a storm.

You mention in your artist statement the concept of “thinking through sight” … I loved thinking about what that concept means to me. What does it mean to you?

Wow, you’re thorough! A lot of my ideas exist in the intersections between senses and perceptions. I’m talking about the part of the mind that links different elements in the body’s sensory web, integrates those with the relevant points of memory, knowledge, intuition and empathy, then feeds them through the unconscious mind’s lateral engine to make instantaneous, perceptive connections. It’s similar to that place we go when we read. In the same way that people can hone and elaborate upon their impressions of a philosophy by writing out logical arguments, engaging in discourse, and researching points of uncertainty, making visual art helps me flesh out some of the connections made in that space. When I talk about medium as language, this is part of it. As far as I know, we don’t have any simple nouns or verbs in English that really capture that part of sensing in one word. Since those connections can’t be easily fleshed out with words, image seems the most natural way to distill them and explore some aspect of that sense’s insight.

Tell us about Historic Manscapes, your collage series. There is this feeling I get in viewing a lot of your work of things being obstructed in plain sight. It’s a really interesting dynamic.

Thank you. It’s a largely unconscious trope, but it’s definitely been present in my work for a long time. This ties into your earlier question about history. This series is a progression of integrations between an anonymous man from another time, and a contemporary landscape turned on its axis. These quotidian sights from dissonant time periods alter and inform each other with their proximity, in a way that mimics our contemporary access to history without the set of visual and philosophical literacies that would have been present in the time when these remnants were created. I am very interested in images that may contain references to and adaptations from their cultural history, but can still be felt and sensed closely from a perspective completely outside of their own instantiating context. I am drawn to this capacity, because it is so human.

Historic Manscapes also ties into my own history. I grew up in a bookshelf. Literally…. when I was small, I painted the inside of my closet black, dragged in a bookshelf, and built a nest on the second shelf, where I would curl up to sleep. I felt more connected to books than people, so I always felt like I lived in my own universe, and that was the natural place for dreams. As I aged, I started to see that each person walks around carrying this entire universe inside of them, and if people don’t tap into these realms, and let them escape somehow (often through some creative medium), then these universes stay hidden and lost forever, along with their hosts. This is why your observation of “things being obstructed in plain sight” is so apt. The things we have in common, but have the hardest time sharing, are the ways of being that are invisible. I think it is the responsibility of some artists to create portals into those other places so that people can feel like they aren’t alone. Even if the openings to those places in us feel strange or slightly uncanny, I think we are drawn to objects that hint at the unexpressed sides of our inner worlds. Our multiplicities are hungry, and art is their way of writing love letters to strangers, to other Others. Making a piece of visual art is like singing a torch song.  It doesn’t have to be for everybody, but it is there for anyone, lingering outside the body.  The most popular translation of one of Heraclitus’ fragments tells us, “Nature loves to hide”. This series reminds me of the evolution of that love through time.  It is a reminder to keep peeling back the layers. Or to keep layering them forward. To perpetuate that love, and find new ways to share it. Or at least to keep it safe. To reserve a place for it in the world.

How do you view the classicism of technique versus the impetus of inspiration?

It’s very difficult for me to think of classicism and inspiration as rivals. The meditative practice of classical technique can often trigger the gamma wave activity in the brain that accompanies inspiration, though there are many ways to have a burst of creativity. I think that the natural rival of inspiration is pain. Each can cure the other. Pain cures inspiration, and inspiration cures pain. Medicine is dependent upon our definition of sickness, which is sometimes physical, sometimes cultural. I don’t know what kind of art we need. I just know that we desperately need art.

In other words, I know some people who view using a computer to manipulate images, like that which is done with a lot of great digital collage work isn’t as valued or pristine, as say, oil painting. As someone who works in older medium yet navigates the world of computers and collage, I wonder how you view that opposition.

That’s a complicated set of issues. It really comes down to the difference between financial and aesthetic values, both of which change as we look at them from an individual or larger, social perspective.

As individuals, we often feel that things are more valuable if we spend more time on them, but this is a psychological construct, and time is not always a direct indicator of quality. Our culture often places the highest value on art that artists have physically handled, touched repeatedly, or made themselves. (Or at least it did, before the impacts of today’s real estate market started altering the business of buying art so drastically). If I create a digital collage, but decide to limit the number of prints in an edition to a very small number, the value of the prints increases due to scarcity (supply and demand, one of the basic tenets of commerce). If I limit the edition to 1 print, I will still value an original drawing more dearly, because of its potential for physical uniqueness. Even if I draw a related image later, it’s the only thing just like it in all the world. If I see a picture of the same image online, even if it is a high quality scan that shows more detail than my eye itself can see looking at the drawing in person, the reproduction seems to be missing something.

If we’re talking about access and the ease of generating images with technology, one process itself is not inherently superior to another, except toward specific ends. A culture of education and art should be available for the public. When they aren’t, individuals and then their social groups become sick. The cultural value of digital and reproducible art is very high. But collectors do not always buy art on behalf of their entire culture. They buy for more individual reasons. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with collectors placing higher financial value on a painting than a digital work of art. Although I have been intellectually moved by digital works, I have had more profound aesthetic experiences in front of tangible works of art.

I think of digital art as a populist gesture, like publishing a book. An original, handwritten manuscript will sell for much more than a late publication of the exact same text, and I love that, because it is a financial acknowledgement that our culture still values being in proximity with inspiration. In an aesthetic culture that often tragically devalues visual narrative, I see it as a great sign of hope that we still cherish something we can’t quite define.

What are you currently working on?

As usual, I’m working on a number of projects simultaneously: drawings for the Mounted Kingdoms series, paintings, collages (both digital and analog, for private commissions), and some small sculptures of Moonlight Hunters. I am getting ready to release a visual poem as a small art book, just as soon as I find a publisher who offers the kind of paper I like at the scale the work calls for. I’m also working on a long-term, secret project that I’m very excited about, but all I can say for now is that it is an art book. And now, thanks to some of the observations and questions you shared, I am starting a new mixed media piece…. once again IPMM has inspired me!

Coffee or tea?

Both, as long as they’re strong!

Have you considered making limited edition prints available of your collage work, at least?

Actually, I just started making prints of my collages very recently, limited to signed and numbered editions of 6. Eight of them are on display right now in the lobby of Livestream Public in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Name one artist IPMM readers should check out immediately.

In the spirit of our conversation, I’ll name one artist, twice in a row. One creates an art full of worlds, and the other creates a world full of art. I’ll let you decide which is which. They are Julie Heffernan and Phong Bui.