Sarah Carrington – Biography

Graduating in 1999 from Edinburgh University with a sell-out degree show, Sarah began her career as a self-employed artist based in Edinburgh. Her work focuses on the Scottish coastline, a passion she has had since childhood holidays on the west coast and sailing excursions around the Hebrides.

Her paintings are often large in scale (up to 6 x 12 feet long), colourful yet at the same time subtle. Her understanding of the nature of the sea and sky is evident in her work. The viewer is enveloped by the vastness of the sea and sky. Depth and distance of sea and sky are constant features in her work, emphasised by the triptych format she often uses. Most of the paintings are created in the studio from photographs and sketches executed on-the-spot at the beach. The beaches tend to be local due to their accessibility, such as Gullane, North Berwick, Longniddry and Catterline (Aberdeenshire). However, more recently she has been drawn back to the west coast of Scotland, to Ullapool and Ardnamurchan, and to its Hebridean islands, in particular, Iona.

She uses household emulsion, acrylic, oil, sand and varnish to create a variety of surfaces to describe the different textures of the land and shore and to evoke the mood and weather of the place. For Sarah, these places remain a constant inspiration for her work.

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