Q: Can you tell our audience a little more about yourself?
A: I was born and raised in the countryside of Colorado, where I fell in love with both horses and the natural beauty of the land around me as soon as I could form memories. I was lucky to have extremely supportive parents who encouraged me to pursue my passions and spend extra time practicing whatever art medium I was most interested in at the time. Since I was head over heels for the extremely expensive hobby of horseback riding, I spent many years as a working student at various barns in exchange for being around horses as much as possible. In my teens, I took oil painting classes with local artist Judith Dickinson that opened up a whole new world of color and a new way of getting the scenes in my head out into the real world.
Q: Growing up, did you always want to be an artist? Then expanding on that, what did the
beginning of your art career look like?
A: I always knew that working a regular 9 to 5 desk job was never going to be for me. Straight out of college, I tried training as a tattoo artist, then tried selling hyper-realistic pencil portraits, all the while throwing my hat in the ring of any art show I could find in an attempt to find my path. After many starts and stops, I almost quit pursuing art professionally during the pandemic, deeply frustrated with trying to run a business and discover my artistic voice at the same time. Slowly, I rediscovered my love of oil painting and found that I could build a supportive community online by sharing not what I thought people wanted to see, but what I wanted to share from my heart. Only when I fully embraced my unique style was I able to connect with collectors, and I couldn’t be more excited about the direction my art is heading in today.
Q: What do you do or where do you go to find inspiration for your pieces?
A: It always comes back to horses. Their relationships with each other, to their riders, to the western landscapes – there are endless aspects of horses that I’m deeply in love with, and I never feel at a loss for what to paint next with them as my inspiration.
Q: What other Western artist has inspired your work the most? Or who do you look up to the most?
A: It’s so hard to narrow it down to just one! I think if I had to, I would say Sophy Brown. The first time I saw one of her pieces I was blown away by her use of color, texture, and the freedom of her brushwork. Her work inspired me to step away from strict realism and embrace a more stylized approach to my own painting.
Q: What does your creative process look like for one of your original pieces?
A: I like to start with a theme for a collection of paintings, and that gives me direction for the mood and color palette of each piece. I’ll spend hours sorting through reference photos and piecing things together in Photoshop until I feel I have the most striking version of the scene I’m trying to create. I’ll do a quick concept sketch to make sure everything works well on paper, and when it’s finally time to put paint to canvas I feel like I’ve thoroughly explored exactly what I want the finished piece to look like. Then it’s just a matter of getting the paint where I need it to be!
Q: What are some of your goals for the next 3-5 years?
A: I would like to continue deepening my relationship with my collectors, and I’d like to expand into more high-profile western art shows to get my work seen in person a little more often. The Coors Western Art Show is in my home state, and I’d love to see my paintings hanging there soon!
Sarah’s Closing Thoughts
I’m extremely proud and excited to be taking part in the Cowgirl Artists of America’s upcoming show, Women’s Work. The show is connecting female artists with working women on ranches to showcase the nuanced stories of women and their contributions to the West. The show opens in August 2024 at the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art, and I can’t wait to hang a few new paintings of mine alongside a group of incredibly talented female artists. You can learn more about Sarah and her available pieces at SarahDeanArts.com and you can also follow her on Instagram and Facebook at SarahDeanArts.
