We The People Print

"Sarrow’s plaintively political paintings occupy the intersection of humanism and feminism, inhabiting the nexus of empathy and an activist’s passion for ecological change. Sarrow gives voice to the oppressed and produces images that champion the healing of earth’s biosphere. The power of her artworks is forged in a crucible in which advocacy meets injustice to promise a better world. Earnest and nuanced with feminist and environmental concerns, the artist endeavors to take viewers into a new territory of loving, caring, protest, and hope, sometimes all swirled together into a single painting. We the People, a big, bold, work, is particularly concerned with those wounded by the Trumpian zeitgeist. The image evokes the artist’s yearning for the country to embrace values free from the constraints of racism and xenophobia; a country proud of and welcoming to immigrants. The focus of the piece is a brown-skinned woman standing in the sea wearing a hijab, her arms bent in supplication. Sarrow illustrates her body with political iconography that uses signs and symbols of her eco-political beliefs. A companion work, One Nation, features an African-American man standing in the sea, his hands in prayer. The man’s clothing is covered with signifiers of economic injustice, while ecospheric green veins lead from his heart to his head. -Phil Tarley, Art Critic