Sarah Konrad: Relief Printmaking

Sarah Konrad is a Relief Print artist who creates linocut prints that are highly limited editions.

 

Artist Statement

Sarah is inspired by time spent outside studying the natural world as a scientist and playing on the trails near her home with skis, bikes, and running shoes. She loves the quiet of skiing through the woods as the snow on the trees muffles the sounds around her, the noise of the birds and squirrels as she runs under their trees, and the sparkle of rime on a pine needle. 

Printmaking on a small scale challenges her to abandon fine detail and instead capture the essence of the subject. An individual skier is known by the bend of an arm, the tilt of the head. An aspen tree grows knots in a particular pattern on the trunk and cannot be mistaken for a birch. Water appears blue but is filled with colorful reflections of the paddler. Carving these essential traits into linoleum or wood brings her a deeper recognition and understanding of the natural and athletic worlds.

Bio 

Sarah has explored multiple professions/avocations, and each one has provided inspiration for the ones that followed. Spending her twenties instructing and guiding backcountry expeditions led to a fascination with ice and snow and graduate degrees in glacial geology and glaciology. Time on snow and ice was also time on skis and was followed by Olympic competition in cross country skiing and biathlon (2006 Olympiad in Torino, Italy). First-hand experience within the inner world of international sport led to years volunteering as an athlete advocate. And then….on a cold, snowy November night, she wandered through Laramie’s biannual Touchstone Exhibition, where a long conversation with a friendly printmaker led to an almost magical invitation, and she soon found herself in the studio learning by doing. She has been infatuated with the art form ever since.