Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Bricke.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I am proud to be an artist, mother, and feminist. For me, these three identities are heavily entwined; each role overlaps and influences the other.
I will enter my final year at CSUSM in Fall 2019. As this approaches, I find myself filled with excitement, deep joy, and also amazement. My journey through college has not taken the traditional path. It has been a long journey with many detours, but today and always, I find myself marveling at its beauty.
I feel privileged to be a student and to be in the process of realizing a dream that will ultimately benefit my child, myself, and hopefully, many others. I know that there is power in art, both for the viewer and for the artist. My goal is to use my work to address social issues, women’s issues, and themes of community and gender equity. Upon completion of my BA, I hope to be accepted to an MFA program, to continue my studies and eventually provide inspiration and mentorship for students as a visual arts professor.
Please tell us about your art.
I am interested in art as a communicative tool, and in the power of storytelling for those that tell as well as those that hear. I am consumed by the need to create messages that are influenced by diverse sources and reference points. Seeking to unite disparate materials and techniques, I explore boundaries and barriers between people and communities. Through my work, I author a story that is a holistic view of cycles and patterns – the journey from brokenness to wholeness, and back to broken again, and back to whole once more, is one that continues to obsess and compel me. I am fascinated by the female story and by the ways it is both echoed and obscured by the landscape around it. The representation of the female icon in myth, fairy tale, and legend is a recurring theme in my work; I seek to subvert or reinterpret those icons through a feminist lens. As time passes, I find myself more and more committed to telling women’s stories; collaboration with other women has become something that is integral to my process.
Within my body of work, through imagery, narrative, research, and the search for meaning, a space is created, which is limitless; which is boundless. A landscape is constructed that is outside of the corporeal, but still related to it, bridging the subconscious and physical worlds.
While seeking to tell women’s stories, I also explore the nature of reality and the existence of truth. My work is derived from extensive research and is conceptually driven; equally important to my artistic process is the collaborative process and accessibility and relevance for the viewer, to whom I say:
We are not separate, you and I – and so I invite you to see with me:
That beauty and ugliness are one and the same that eternity exists in every moment, that brokenness and wholeness are not opposites and instead, are forever joined in a cycle that never begins and never ends.
Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national, or international events and issues affect your art?
I think artists have a responsibility to address societal issues, as do we all. In the present political context, it’s absolutely imperative that artists add their voices to those speaking out against injustice and systemic oppression. My own work is heavily research driven; by its nature, it is influenced by events on scales from the local to the international.
My own work primarily engages women’s issues and experiences, and frequently references reproductive rights. My current project at the Salton Sea relates maternal death rates in the United States to some of the fish species there. I am also at the beginning stages of research that relates to domestic violence, specifically what is termed “repetition compulsion” – studies and statistics have shown that women who have experienced sexual assault or physical violence are more likely to be revictimized.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My current project, UNDINES AT THE SALTON SEA, is on view at New Village Arts in Carlsbad. This is an ongoing project that encompasses research and documentation of the Salton Sea and its environs and makes use of the site as and surrounding landscape as a metaphor for philosophical concepts and the contemporary maternal experience. This work is in collaboration with visual artist and photographer Kimberly Lopez.
People can connect with me through my website and through Instagram; my website focuses on completed projects; I tend to share more photos of the process and works in progress on Instagram.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sarahbricke.com
- Email: lydia672@gmail.com
- Instagram: @sarahbricke
Image Credit:
Emily Ruggieri
ClairAnn Herbert
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