Sarah Paulsen

My art centers engagement with social change through the sharing of stories in community spaces. I make work about subcultures, outsiders, and the informal configurations of community. I examine identity through illustrating stories that are intimate and comment on larger social issues. Primarily I work with paint, but I additionally construct animated films made from my artwork, using stop motion animation techniques.

Raised in Kirkwood, Missouri, Sarah Paulsen is an artist, filmmaker and community organizer whose artwork has been exhibited widely in local and national exhibitions, and whose prize-winning films have been featured in the St. Louis International Film Festival, the True/False Film Festival, the Black Maria Film Festival, the Motivate Film Festival and the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, among many others. She was a 2018 Great Rivers Biennial Winner culminating in an exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. A 2010 C.A.T. Institute fellow and 2015 Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellow, she has garnered numerous awards for her work and also completed several residencies – including the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris. A dedicated advocate for social change, a key aspect of Paulsen’s prac...

Washington University, St. Louis, MO. M.F.A. 2007.

University of Missouri-Columbia, MO. B.F.A. Painting, 2000.

2024
The Swope Museum of Art, Terre Haute, IN.

2023
Mother(ing) as Meditation, The High Low Gallery, St. Louis, MO.
Pop and Prep, Houska Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

2022
Nature/Nurture, GCADD, Granite City, IL.
We Intuit, Houska Gallery, St. Louis, MO.
Parenthood, Art St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.

2021
Curious?, Angad Arts Hotel, St. Louis, MO.
Painting at Night, Art Link Contemporary Gallery, Fort Wayne, IN.

2020
Pliant Glimpses, New Music Circle.
Rights and Wrongs: Citizenship, Belonging, and the Vote, the Peale at the Carroll Mansion, Baltimore, MD.

2019
Mirror, Mirror. McKendree College, Lebanon, IL.

2018
Great Rivers Biennial, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis.
Aggregate Gallery, Oakland, CA.
Intersect Arts, St. Louis, MO.

2017
White Ghosts, Kranzberg Arts Center, St. Louis, MO.
Past times, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL.
Playing Innocent, John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities at Brown University, Providence, RI.

2016
Exposure Ten Year, Gallery 210, UMSL.
Equality Matters, William Woods University, MO.
American Dilemna, GCADD, Granite City, IL.
Faculty Invitational, St. Charles Community College, MO.
Feminist Film Festival, Art Theater Co-op, Champaign, IL.
Central Library Experimental Cinema ...