Thumb Painting

Sara Dare is an abstract painter. She works at multiple scales using paper, linen and canvas, with a range of mediums informed by their fluidity including ink, oil, emulsion and acrylic. Dare’s paintings seek to convey an initial playful interaction with the viewer followed by a sense of unease or tension. Psychologically charged forms push against the edges of the canvas, split open, dangle, and protrude. Successes are a balance between discomfort and humour, lure and repulsion, confrontation and sanctuary and the organic and contrived. The size of work is carefully considered to create the illusion of a physiological space through visual clues and the manipulation of symmetry - a tunnel or an archway - intimate or imposing. There is evidence of Dare’s physical contact and the process behind the work is typically exposed. This touch is often awkwardly just within reach, reducing the capacity for a slick finish or confident gesture and unambiguously hand made. Smaller works emphasise broad movements and allow the viewer to observe the artist-painting relationship more intimately. Dare’s palette reference is broad and instinctive, and colour is manipulated to evoke an emotional response. Dare is also concerned with the environment surrounding the works and the conversations between them. She consistently works on several pieces as a series and actively encourages a dialogue and visual interaction that connects and holds them together. The significance of scale and alternative curation is an ongoing enquiry in Dare’s practice. Presenting work in non-art spaces and everyday landscape initially started as a ‘reaction against’ and a ‘mechanism to support’ viewing work on digital platforms. By documenting paintings in urban landscapes such as industrial estates and car-parks, she insists that the paintings work harder to engage with their audience, whilst also finding their own relevance in terms of proportion, colour and physicality. This continuing investigation also illuminates a bodily presence in the paintings, underscored by the contrast of a hard-edged backdrop, and the paintings seem more alive.