Sarah Dee Barrett London, United Kingdom

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I am an artist with northern roots but based in Hackney. I completed a BTEC Foundation in Art & Design at Kendal College (2002), a Fine Art Certificate at Leeds University School of Fine Art and Cultural Studies (2004) and a BA in Interdisciplinary Art & Design at Leeds College of Art & Design. I have a studio in London Fields. I am interested in the everyday experience of nature and landscape.

I am a painter with a preference for oil, but work across oil, acrylic, goauche and watercolour. Photography is a key part of my process, I take hundreds of reference photographs on my local walks, always looking for something that stands out or sparks the inspiration to paint. I attach emotion and memory to my work, conveying this through exaggerated or playful colour palettes and unusual composition and framing. There is a graphic quality to my work but also a fight between abstraction and hyper-real detail. I'm inspired by some of the usual suspects in landscape painting, including Hockney, Money, Van Gogh, but also many many artists working today including Nick Bodimeade, Jonathan Hooper, Marie Lenclos, Per Adolfsen, Tiga Helme, Sophie Perez and more. Recent obsessions have been; painting close up foliage and complex patterns of growth, other people's gardens, paths and waterways and I'm also drawn to graffiti, road signs and other signs that pop up in green spaces. I am also interested in drawing places at night or in twilight.