A:LIST A Project of the Hyde Park Art Center

Sarah Kaiser

Artist Information

Born: 1974, Covington, Kentucky
Currently Resides: Chicago, IL

Contact Information:
sarahkaiser (at) hotmail (dot) com

Medium(s) Worked in:
Painting
photography
printmaking (etching and lithography)
drawing
mixed media
architectural models (3D)

Artist CV:
Download file

Available for Commission: Yes

HPAC Exhibitions

2005, Just Good Art
2004, Just Good Art

Artist Statement

My name is Sarah Marie Kaiser, and I am a painter. My paintings can be my friends. The paintings that I never want to let go of are my children. I can’t sell them because they are a part of me. Other paintings that I have made bored me, and I destroyed them. I regret doing that to some of them too, but others deserved it. Plus, painting over them, or ripping them off their frames is refreshing and cathartic.

The works that I have painted over have hidden surprises. Because I am also a printmaker, I have a physical way of sanding and scraping the surface. At times, they feel like anthropological relics, as someone’s eye that I once painted over will pop through the screen, or a knife will rise up like an arrow and shoot through the surface.

I make whatever moves me. If I find a Bazooka gum wrapper on a wet sidewalk, I’ll scan it and enlarge it so that I can see all of the ben-day dots. I’m an adjunct teacher, and I teach students about Lichtenstein. If some of the subject matter moves me to emulate it, then I will. For example, Constable’s clouds moved me. So, I re-interpreted them by painting them and then drawing a pair of eyeglasses on the surface.

I make whatever moves me. If I find a Bazooka gum wrapper on a wet sidewalk, I’ll scan it and enlarge it so that I can see all of the ben-day dots.

I handle paint differently than Constable. I prefer to give my canvases a diaphanous appearance by studying the work post-painterly abstractionists such as Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, and Morris Lewis; I dilute paint so it behaves more like dye. I love seeing the fibrous weave of a brown, earthy linen canvas.

I draw and paint eyeglasses often. It all started when I was earning an MFA at the University of Chicago. I was feeling very overwhelmed by a whirlwind of contemporary art theory. Herbert George, my advisor, told me to “put the words in a box,” implying that I should focus upon physical, real things instead of esoteric ideas. He took off my glasses and started fumbling with them in front of a flood light. In a nutshell, he basically told me to shut-up and look at the glorious, long shadows that were elegantly draped across a table. The glasses were casting sinuous lines and shadows that played a little game with each other. In his child-like manner, he narrated this game.

Thanks to Herbert, I’m now obsessed with spectacles, of many types. However, on a deeper level, he taught me to be still, and to ground myself by looking. I know how to do this, and to do this well. Yet the fast-paced adult world often sweeps me up in a vortex, and I need to make art to return to a still, orderly place where I make the rules; where I am in control.

Currently, I draw lots of geometrical forms. They tend to fight with the amorphous paint underneath, as if their lines trap paint that mimics the wind. I am fascinated with the sky, and rub paint with rags to mimic wispy clouds. I have learned compositional skills from Eric Aho and Laura Letinsky. Both artists have low horizon lines so that empty space creates images that breathe.

Artist Bio

Before attending the University of Chicago, I defined myself, first and foremost, as an artist. As the child of a single mom who worked and traveled a lot, I grew up playing with construction paper, drawing pictures of my dog, making little dresses for my cat to wear, and playing with my imaginary friends. For me, creating work has always filled the quite spaces of my life with refreshing time to explore, and as I have grown older, it has become an intensely private endeavor. During my teenage years, I produced the breadth of my artwork in my basement, where I sketched images of my family that I found in the old albums that my grandma gave us. I obsessively worked because I did not know what else to do with myself, as I lived on a big patch of land in Kentucky. Now, when I look back on such moments, I’m convinced that there was something magical about spending time during my formative years in that manner, while my peers were being rushed around to cheerleading, piano, and ballet practice. Now I can appreciate the subtle joys of being bored.

I’m somewhat all grown up now, but I still make and exhibit art. I remember when my family kept saying that somehow I’d grow out of this “phase,” but I never did. Actually, I tried pretty hard not to be an artist. Sure, I’ve tried on different hats, like office worker, social worker, camp counselor, teacher, and the like. Although I have enjoyed helping other people by assuming such roles, I’ll always come back to my studio, which, like the musty old basement in Kentucky, serves as a place where I find peace and predictability. Now when I copy the lines of a faint smile or run my eyes across the lace of an old curtain, I am able to obtain some degree of intimacy with my place in the grand scheme of things.

As a student of the University of Chicago, I continued to explore the elusive possibility of intimacy offered by art.

As a student of the University of Chicago, I continued to explore the elusive possibility of intimacy offered by art. I enjoy investigating the means by which people address and interact with the unknown and/or incomprehensible. I am considering applying to Ph.D. programs in art history. I hope to further develop my capacity to write about my own imaginings and apply theory to artwork. Specifically, I have been teaching visual art and art history at the Harold Washington College, and I enjoy helping people to obtain a relationship with the divine and/or a dialogue with the past.

During my first year at Midway Studios, I began to realize the degree to which a person’s reception and production of art is conditioned by the surrounding social circumstances. The institution’s critique process, and the opportunities to show my work, afforded me the opportunity to bring my private work into the public and hear others vocalize their reactions. Such an opportunity was quite scary, but I my curiosity eventually transcended my initial fears. During my second year there, my concerns moved from my own art practice to an investigation of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings. The type of inquiry I wished to conduct called for a broader liberal arts education. So I decided to enroll in the MAPH program at Chicago to earn a second masters degree.

I am glad that I never “grew out of” that “artist” phase….

Past Commissions

Past commissions include:

Teaching Experience

Hyde Park Art Center Courses:

Exploring Symmetry
Students learn to understand symmetry by using mirrors. They will develop their shape
vocabulary and writing skills by recognizing symmetrical forms: the letters A, I, O, X,
hearts, butterflies, etc.
Sample Curriculum

Additional Information