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I’m Sarah Winkler.
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I’m a mixed media painter, and I live in Morrison, Colorado.
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I was selected by Ambassador John Pomershine.
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He was very specific about what kind of artists and artwork he wanted for that location in
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Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
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He wanted Colorado artists that specifically focused on the Rocky Mountain landscape.
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Dushanbe is a sister city to Boulder, Colorado, and they also share a very similar landscape.
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So both cities have a backdrop of these rugged, wild, geologically exposed landscapes, the
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Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan and for us, the Rocky Mountains.
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So he picked artists that he could share with Tajikistan and share our landscape and our
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common landscape with each other in the embassy there.
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So he selected a piece of mine, Sundown Canyon Country, which is a painting about the western
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slope of the Colorado Rockies, where the mountains transitioned into a desert landscape.
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So it’s very rugged, exposed geology there.
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So it sort of looks like how I imagined the mountains surrounding Tajikistan.
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We here in Boulder, Colorado, have a wonderful teahouse that I’ve been to, and it was all
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handcuffed by Tajik artisans, about 40 of them who hand carved the building, painted
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it, filled it with sculpture and ceramics.
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And it’s just a beautiful exchange of their art and their history that we have here in
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Boulder to enjoy.
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So I think that’s why the ambassador was wanted specifically to take Colorado artists to Tajikistan
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to show them what what our little world is like here.
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I think it’s fantastic that when art leaves the studio, it can serve many purposes.
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And so what greater purpose than being an ambassador of the United States?
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In a way, for me, showcasing the landscapes of the American West, the exchange of ideas
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through art, the exchange of esthetics has no boundaries.
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So I’ve always felt it was a universal language and it knows no boundaries.
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So many people from many cultures, a world of art can communicate through art and can
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appreciate art.
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So I think it’s wonderful to have to be part of this program and have that have the arts
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serve a higher purpose.
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I’m interested in this branch of geology, which is called geomorphology, and that is
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the history of of the process of landscape building.
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I saw in that moment something that resembled a painting.
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So you’re painting you’re making something out of nothing.
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You and it has a series of actions that build over time and it ends up looking the way it
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does.
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So I sort of dissected that and thought, wow, this is like the process of how a landscape
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is formed.
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The way I paint is I apply paint and I remove it.
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So it’s a technique in geology, it’s deposition of material and eroding of materials.
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So that is the way I paint.
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I put paint down and then I remove it some way to disperse the paint in a way that it
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looks like something you’ve seen in nature
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. I do all my sketches in a collage format and I make all my own papers.
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So those collages and the way I make the papers is I basically mimic the 15 basic patterns
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in nature.
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So nature has a design that repeats itself.
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So like rivers have the same pattern as the branches and trees.
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So that’s called a branching pattern.
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So I will just figure out a way to move materials around to create a pattern like branching.
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And then once I figured that down, I can incorporate that into the painting as a texture.
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And so it helps describe some aspects of that landscape that I’m working on.
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So I do a bunch of experiments in the studio to create those textures.
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Then I scan them and onto archival material papers, and I and I have a whole drawers and
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drawers and drawers full of these papers, which I then use to build these
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miniature collages.
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And those are fun and very time consuming to make.
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So it takes me longer to make that little six inch collage than it does to do a six
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foot painting.
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If you can believe in this.
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So because in the in the collages that I’m working out, my compositions and color and
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texture and and so on
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. So there’s a lot more hours in those little collages.
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And then I take that and develop those.
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Sketches into the large scale paintings and the paintings are all done in acrylic.
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Other than the embedded minerals, but they’re all done in acrylic, but they mimic they have
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a collage esthetic, which I like.
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So it’s this idea of building landscapes again and building layers and building strata into
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a visual painting.
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And it’s got history and it’s got time involved and and quite a long process.
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So my color all comes from nature.
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So I need the trying to match colors that I’m seeing in trees or skies or rocks, or
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I’m more likely physically collecting material in the studio and color matching to the to
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the rocks.
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And so so, for example, I’ve done a whole series on the southwest deserts and I’ve collected
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rocks from the desert plateau out there along
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the the Charma River.
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And so I have eight colors from that, and I’ll mix rocks to match that.
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So when I do a painting about that area, it really resonates with people because they
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know it is the color of their area, which is, again, very different than the color of
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if I’m painting the Teton Mountains in Wyoming
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. So I try and that’s an important aspect for me is to the color relates to the place.
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And so when I’m traveling, I do take color notes and then try and match those colors
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in the studio.
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I’ve always painted nature, so I’ve always been interested in landscape in the natural
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world.
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And when I was studying Odd at university, I also took many electives in science, and
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that was my wow moment.
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I learned that landscapes were not static, but landscapes were in flux and that what
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we see today was not always there.
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And so I found that deeply interesting.
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And so now in my artwork, I go directly into the landscape to experience it.
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But I’m not just looking at what the here and now looks like, but I’m delving into what’s
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three miles beneath my feet.
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What what is the history unraveling of this place?
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I’ve lived out west for 20 years, so I focused all my art in that time on Western landscape,
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particularly the mountain and desert landscape.
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So it just vastly interests me that the desert was once an ancient sea and then, you know,
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the mountains uplifted from that.
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And so it’s this idea of landscapes transitioning through time.
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So through the art, I’m really actually not only interested in what’s so esthetically
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pleasing and so beautiful about what the viewpoint in front of me, but to describe the the history
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of why and how it looks the way it does.
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So through through sort of abstract painting and through mimicking textures and colors
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and patterns and processes of nature, I think that’s that’s how I’m combining the two interests
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together.
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I was born in Manchester, England, but due to my my father’s career in aviation, we’ve
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actually lived abroad for many, many years.
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So we’ve lived Africa, Borneo, America.
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So I’ve always been a foreigner in a foreign place, it feels like.
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But I think that’s why I connect with the environment first.
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Perhaps I just want to know wherever it is I’m living and what the nature is of it.
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So I’ve ever since Africa, I’ve always been interested in different environments.
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My studio is a nine thousand foot peak in the Rocky Mountains, and you are very small
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next to a mountain.
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And so there’s this sense of like the vastness of wilderness and the struggle of wilderness
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and the survival aspects of wilderness.
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So as as a subject for painting, it’s just it’s endless for me, the fascination with
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them.
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I focus on the area probably within 200 miles of where I live because I like to experience
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it directly.
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So I, I, I only go to places that I can, you know, get to easily.
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And because I think you have to go a number of times to see it in all seasons, to see
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it in all kind of weather scenarios, and to get a full picture of the character of the
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place.
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So I like to focus on what’s, I guess, local to me.
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It definitely helps to have a deep and rich knowledge of your environment, your surroundings.
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And I think you need that to translate that into to something that feels truthful in the
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outlook.
