Three Gastronomy Painted Collages
By Sara Huxley
Original artworks
Mixed media collages on canvs or wooden panel
Unframed
Images sizes:
Where's the Kefir? H: 100cm x W: 100cm £1200
She Was Always Right H: 80 x W: 80cm £995
Savoury Palette H: 100cm x W: 100cm £1200
In the cold winter months food and eating is one of our restorative pleasures - meals at home and with friends, every day and for a special occasion - and that's the time of year when we first welcomed Sara and her work to the gallery.
Sara's work explores the themes of Food and Dining. As a former textile expert, she's interested in the shapes and patterns of the receptacles and the rich colours and textures of the food and drink, the different angles of the ellipses representing the movement of time.
As with this trio, her paintings and collages are often large in scale and predominantly in mixed media. She experiments with building up layers and transfers of pattern and negative shapes.
"My collages are created by ripping and cutting painted newspaper, alongside paint and inks. I want the pieces to have a clean minimalist feel. I'm interested in stripping the subject back to its most basic elements, the negative spaces being as important as the positive."
These works are very much conceived to be part of the home - ideal for a dining room or kitchen-diner, for example.
ABOUT SARA HUXLEY
Sara Huxley is a contemporary painter, based in Warwickshire, who has a particular passion for collage. Cleverly, she weaves her textiles background into her paintings, creating a tapestry of colours, textures, and patterns, often akin to a fabulous fabric design.
Her works are a celebration of mixed media, utilising layers of acrylic paint, inks, and collage crafted from printed newspapers. The result is a rich visual experience that invites the viewer to explore the intricacies of each piece.
Sara finds her muse in the world of gastronomy, inspired by the conviviality of dinner parties, fine dining, social gatherings and the joy of shared meals. Her subject matter predominantly revolves around still life, offering a semi-abstract interpretation of moments in time, capturing the energy of a lively dinner party or the intimacy of a family meal, such as breakfast or informal lunch.
She works by building up layers, each contributing to the overall narrative of the piece, and her paintings are only completed when the artist feels the essence of the moment has been captured.
Using warm palettes, she celebrates the imperfect beauty found in organic shapes, deliberately painting pots and bowls with irregularities and peculiarities. Negative cut-outs mirror their positive counterpart shapes to produce clean and balanced compositions.
Sara graduated from Birmingham Polytechnic with a BA in Fashion and Textiles and gained a PGCE from Manchester Polytechnic in 1989. After a teaching career as head of department at a college in Birmingham, an examiner and, most recently, an Art teacher at the prestigious King Edward VI High School for Girls in Edgbaston, she became a full-time professional artist in 2021.
She has exhibited in the UK and Sweden and has shown at Art in Action, Oxford and Affordable Art Fairs in London, as well as galleries nationwide.