While travelling and living in Asia, England, Boston, NY State and now N. Adams, MA, Sarah Sutro has been drawn to the nature of place, to the wild with its chaotic and deeply original patterns, and to minimal, often utopian landscape, with powerful forces of light and color. Using natural hand-made inks, India ink, and water-based paint, her work is primarily abstract. Located in the Berkshires of Western MA, her studio draws on the wilderness minutes from her door, and the dynamic art worlds of the museums nearby, Boston and NYC. Recently she has brought figuration back into her work through theatrical acrylic paintings that explore confrontations and connections between cultures.
She has been a college teacher and mentor as well as a poet, essayist and art writer. Her book COLORS: Passages through Art, Asia and Nature explores color as it moves through her life, and explains the ancient Asian art of making inks from natural materials. Her book of poetry, Etudes and other published poems express the unifying edge between humanity and nature.
Her work has been shown internationally in London, Bangkok, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Southern Europe, Nicaragua and nationally on both coasts. She has received numerous grants and fellowships including Pollock Krasner Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, the American Academy in Rome, Ossabaw island Foundation, Goetemann residency at Rocky Neck, and Arts Dulcinium in Montenegro. She graduated from Cornell (BFA), Yale at Norfolk, University of the Arts London (MFA), and has studied writing at Tufts University and Boston Center for Adult Education.
