Weathering Time, 20" x 20"

Oil on Wood Panel, 20 x 20 inches.

"There was a cove near my dad’s cabin that my brother and I played in. The creek ran into the saltwater making a really interesting estuary environment of fresh and salt mix that we loved to explore throughout the year especially when the salmon were running. My memories of this place include the smells, eagles, oysters, and a lot of mud to squelch through in our muck boots when the tide was out.  It was definitely in my mind’s eye as I was working this painting. There are a lot of layers involved: glazing, scraping, carving, drying and building, just as the cove was built over thousands of years of tide and weather. The rhododendron bush featured helps to anchor this space as a symbol of home as the viewer partitions their way through into the past. Though not featured here in bloom, the rhododendron is the official flower of the State of Washington. I also replaced the figure with an image of my daugther from a trip to the ocean last summer. I liked the pose much better than the one of me in the original family photo used as a reference for the cove, so the painitng references are a splicing of imagery, new and old. I  have never taken my daughter to this place. Maybe I should.

My work explores memory and change through imagery and the physical act of painting. The surface aggressively develops, pulling at threads of setting, figure and narrative gleaned from family photographs. It ages. The painted surface is aggressively worked in layers of added color only to be scraped away to abstractly reveal painting action from below, obliterating what was present. Fresh mark-making, born anew."  

Sarah Dillon is originally from Yakima, WA, and now based in Lake Tapps, WA. She received her MFA in painting from Boston University in 2004. Noted exhibitions include Gallery XIV in Boston, which was featured in The Wall Street Journal, Artscope Magazine, MSNBC, Imagine Arts, and Boston Globe. Sarah has exhibited work at the Washington State Convention Center, Blackfish Gallery, Portland, OR, Gallery 110, Seattle, WA, Brooklyn Art Library, NY, Western Bridge Gallery, Seattle, WA, Oxbow Gallery, Northampton, MA, Untitled Space Gallery, NY, Center on Contemporary and Political Art, DC, and Cave Gallery, Vancouver, WA to name a few. Sarah has created commissioned work for the Pike Place Market Foundation and is included in private collections around the country.