Sara Dias

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Sara P. Dias was born in Johannesburg in 1959. Taking on various jobs after high school, she meandered with few possessions from Gauteng to Tzaneen, then to Pretoria and back to Gauteng. After she attended the Boston House College AAA School of Advertising in 1988, she became a junior graphic designer and later an art director. Sara moved to Cape Town in late 1994 for another stint in advertising, after which she became a web designer.

Sara experimented with oil and acrylics for years, but found her true medium in watercolour. Her first series of waterpaintings focused primarily on the lines that bind those afflicted with chronic diseases or mental trauma to the abiding joys of life. Such connections, she found, were best expressed in the unpredictability of watercolour.

Representational art simply could not adequately express the ineffable agonies of the soul, and as a result Sara progressively moved away from realism to seek her bliss in abstraction. In her quest to depict the hidden stresses of life, Sara explores the elastic tension between pause and continuation, infiltration and push-back, and resilience and capitulation. She expresses the essence of this constant tension through the flow and stop of vari...

EDUCATION

Certificate with Distinction. Introduction to Art: Concepts & Techniques. Coursera 2013, Pennsylvania State University, Prof. Anna Divinsky.

Certificate - Crafting an Effective Writer: Tools of the Trade. Coursera 2013, Mt. San Jacinto College, Professors Larry Barkley, Ted Blake and Lorrie Ross.

Certificate. Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo). Coursera 2012, University of Pennsylvania, Prof. Al Filreis.

Certificate. Creative Writing. Random House Struik 2011, Ron Irwin.

Diploma with Merit. Boston House College AAA School of Advertising 1988.

Certificate. Witwatersrand College for Advanced Technical Education 1977.

Matric. Hoërskool Roodepoort 1976.
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GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022 - "Tirana International Contemporary Festival,” Tirana Art Gallery, National Historical Museum, Albania.

2021 - "Indonesia International Watercolor Online Competition and Exhibition," Agus Budiyanto Aquarelle Studio, Jakarta, Indonesia.

2020 - "Home Is Where The Art Is: Art Is Where The Home Is," Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.

2019 - "3rd Tirana International Watercolor Biennale," National Historical Museum, Tirana, Albania.

2019 - "IWSSA 1st International Watermedia Festival," Art Curator Gallery, Lourensford Estate, Somerset West, South Africa.

2019 - Global Association of Watercolor Artists (GAWA) Annual International Watercolor Online Contest.

2018 - "IWSSA 2nd National Watermedia Exhibition," Grayston Gallery, Sandton, South Africa.

2018 - "IWSSA 1st National Watermedia Exhibition," Artem Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.

2017 - "1st Quito International Watercolour Biennale," Itchimbia Art Center, Quito, Ecuador.

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