~ Sarah Novio ~
After informing Sarah that she had been selected for the residency I reached out to get to know more about her. Below is some more information about the 2017 recipient.
Sarah was born and raised in Long Island, NY. She attended college in Florida before moving to go to New York Academy. Currently residing in New Jersey, Sarah enjoys being active, music, Disney movies, and enjoying the company of family and friends when she’s not creating artwork. As a kid, Sarah enjoyed drawing but would get in trouble for drawing in her notebook. She stopped making art in middle school and picked it back up after taking an art class while applying to a nursing program. This resulted in her changing her major to art. During this change is where she found her love for painting.
She is inspired visually by artists including, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Cecily Brown, and Nicole Eisenman. She also gets inspiration from books and nature’s beauty.
Sarah enjoys being in a new place and out of her comfort zone. This is one of the reasons she enjoys residencies. When in a new environment she asks herself “How am I going to adapt, who am I going to meet, and who is going to influence me?”. She sees residencies as not only an “endeavor of art” but also a journey of personal growth.
When asked about using color in her art, Sarah said that studying different art helped her realize that color is, “not just something we see, it is something that can be used to create emotion”. Sarah feels that through art she has a responsibility to use her voice to help bring awareness to the inequality between men and women. This is why she plays with the process of painting while simultaneously painting about personal narrative and the experiences of a woman coming of age. She says her work thus far has been a journey between abstraction and representational art because she enjoys the push and pull between describing a human figure and obliterating it with flat shape and color.
On behalf of the NOW team, we are excited to Congratulate Sarah Novio on being the recipient of the 2017 NOW Artist Residency and we are looking forward to her stay!
-Chay