Sara Sizer

Biography

°1957, Dallas, US
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Sizer works with "loaded" materials which have a life, a past, or a cultural reference, relying on the material itself to contribute to the sense of a painting. Materials can become narrative when they are “left to their own devices". Like people who grow up in a specific family, in a certain country, operating with inborn traits and speaking a given language; the interaction of very particular materials can tell a story.

Recent notable exhibitions were at Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg and Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz in Chemnitz amongst others.

Sara Sizer is represented by Gallery Sofie Van de Velde.

www.sarasizer.com

°1957, Dallas, US
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Sizer works with "loaded" materials which have a life, a past, or a cultural reference, relying on the material itself to contribute to the sense of a painting. Materials can become narrative when they are “left to their own devices". Like people who grow up in a specific family, in a certain country, operating with inborn traits and speaking a given language; the interaction of very particular materials can tell a story.

Recent notable exhibitions were at Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg and Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz in Chemnitz amongst others.

Sara Sizer is represented by Gallery Sofie Van de Velde.

www.sarasizer.com

Solo exhibitions

2024

'Voice-Calling-Echo-You', duo exhibition with Bernd Lohaus, Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE

2023

'Beacon', Stella A. Galerie/Edition Berlin, DE
'Second Hand', Galerie Cosar, Düsseldorf, DE

2021

'Gestalten', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE

2018

'Third Person', Gallery Sofie Van Velde, Antwerp, BE
'There', Cosar HMT Galerie, Düsseldorf, DE

2016

'Leaves', Cosar HMT Galerie Düsseldorf, DE

2013

'Finds', Andrae Kaufmann Gallery, Berlin, DE

2011

'Casting Light', Andrae Kaufmann Gallery, Berlin, DE

2007

'Givens', Galerie Isabella Czarnowska, Berlin, DE

2002

'Sara Sizer, New Work', Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA

2001

'Sara Sizer Paintings and Drawings', Harry Simon Gallery, Morristown, New Jersey, USA
'Sara Sizer Idea 2001', Museum of East Texas, Lufkin, Texas, USA

1999

'Sara Sizer Objects', Goliath Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA

1997

'Sara Sizer Paintings', The Wein Center, New York, USA

Group exhibitions

2022

'Something New. Something Old. Something Desired', Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, DE
'Musterung. Pop und Politik in der zeitgenössischen Textilkunst', Kunstmuseum Ravensburg, DE
'head-to-head-to-head', Galerie Georg Nothelfer, Berlin, DE

2020

'L'heure bleue', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde & PLUS-ONE Gallery, Antwerp, BE

2018

'HONEY, I REARRANGED THE COLLECTION #3 Bouncing in the Corner. Die Vermessung des Raum', Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, DE
'Textile Abstraction', Galeria Casas Riegner, Bogota, CO

2017

'a.fair', COSAR HMT, Düsseldorf, DE
Art Brussels, Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE

2016

'Textile Abstraction', Galeria Casas Riegner, Bogota, CO

2015

'Second Nature', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE

2013

'Distracting Surface', Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, AUT
'Black Out', Gregory Cumins Jordan/Seydoux - Drawings & Prints, Berlin, DE

2012

'Measure for Measure', Niels Borch Jensen Galerie, Berlin, DE
'In Formal Structures', curated by Marc Glöde, Andrae Kaufmann Gallery, Berlin, DE

2011

'About Painting', abc Art Berlin Contemporary, Berlin, DE

2003

'After Matisse Picasso', P.S.1 New York, USA
'Resonance', The Work Space, New York, USA

2000

'The Trunk Show', Zoller Gallery, Penn State University, Pennsylvania, USA

1999

'Souvenirs Documents 20 Years', P.S. 122 Gallery, New York, USA
'Package', P.S. 122 Gallery, New York, USA

1995

'Real Life', SOHO20 Gallery, New York, USA

1991

'In Full Effect', White Columns Gallery, New York, USA

Publications

2024

'It's all right, don't think twice', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE

2016

leaves, DISTANZ Verlag, 19 color images leporello with printed slipcase, text by Falk Wolf. http://www.distanz.de/de/books/new-publications/detail/backPID/new-publications/products/sara-sizer-1.html

2014

DISTRACTING SURFACE Berufsvereinigung Bildender Künstlerinnen und Künstler Vorarlbergs, 64 pgs. color illus. text by Antonio Catelani www.kuenstlerhaus-bregenz.at

2013

FINDS DISTANZ Verlag 48 pgs. color illus. text by Julian Heynen http://www.distanz.de/index.php?id=56&L=0&tt_products[product]=142&cHash=69487137539ec2b58620d93a563754e5

2001

Sara Sizer IDEA2001 28 pgs. color illus. text by Daniel Marzona Museum of East Texas, Lufkin, Texas

2023

'And I draw a Line', Kajetan Galerie, Berlin, DE

Artworks

Sara Sizer
Pact, 2024
Painted cotton velvet
180 x 120 cm

Sara Sizer
Sitzender, 2023
Painted cotton velvet
160 x 130 cm

Sara Sizer
Given, 2023
Painted cotton velvet
140 x 120 cm

Sara Sizer
Badge, 2024
Painted cotton velvet
130 x 100 cm

Sara Sizer
Pair, 2024
Painted cotton velvet
140 x 100 cm

Sara Sizer
Verse, 2023
Painted cotton velvet
50 x 50 cm

Sara Sizer
Stand, 2020
Painted velvet
80 x 80 cm

Sara Sizer
Holiday, 2021
Painted velvet
120 x 120 cm

Sara Sizer
Believer, 2021
Painted velvet
120 x 120 cm

Sara Sizer
Paar, 2021
Painted velvet
80 x 80 cm

Sara Sizer
Fremde #1, 2018
Black cotton on wood stretcher
80 x 60 cm

Sara Sizer
Fremde #10, 2018, Black cotton on wood stretcher, 50x40cm

Sara Sizer
Fremde #5, 2018
Black cotton on wood stretcher
100 x 80 cm

Sara Sizer
Fremde #7, 2018
Black cotton on wood stretcher
80 x 60 cm

Sara Sizer
Fremde #13, 2018
Black cotton on wood stretcher
140 x 90 cm

News

Publications

Press

Sara Sizer´s works are paintings, but not made with paint in the conventional sense. Rather these paintings are simply stretched, raw linen which have been partially bleached to reveal images. Some paintings depict forms taken from the garden achieved by spraying bleach around trees, railings and plants. These especially take on a mysterious, quasi abstract appearance sometimes suggesting funnel clouds or strange colums.

These works look like paintings but have nothing on their surface. The support of the painting itself, partly bleached by chemicals, is the painting. This only superficially meets our idea of a painting. The bleach is mostly applied with a brush having the same gesture as if it was painted with paint but with the difference that the application is irreversible. The process can be stopped but not withdrawn, no overpainting, no erasing. Sizer´s way of working to control the paintings through a chemical process leads to the conception of images and the planning of form akin to the sculptor´s and photographer´s. Seen from a semiotical perspective many of these works are indexical in the sense that traces of already existing objects are necessarily imbedded on the canvas. This colorless „painting“ does not remind us „of what was“ (Roland Barthes). The fact that they don´t recall anything real but rather bring to mind a vague memory of something seen contributes to their mystery and creates at the same time their aesthetic identity.

In this way the results of Sizer´s process as seen in her paintings sensitize our perception and sharpen our intuition for correlations. Our perception of architecture, zones of light and shadow, show the same bright and dark contrast which are similarly manifested in the untreated and treated areas of Sizer´s works. For example the phenomenon which occurs when a coffee cup is left on a newspaper in the sunlight and a sillouette of the cup becomes „burned“ after a time onto the newspaper should be common to us but rather seldom attracts our conscious attention. It could be said that Sizer activates these ephemeral possibilities of the everyday capturing these transient motifs on the canvas and finally allowing them to imprint themselves leaving their simple forms forever. Once there, they tell their tale with a calm intensity and stoic presence which upon reflection throws us back to ourselves and back to the still possible act of pure perception.

Through a crack in the darkness, on a very bright day, on a wall with windows which was perpendicular to another wall, an image emerged on the ceiling of my bedroom. It was upside down which became more obvious when someone began waving out of the window. Reading Friedrich Kittler´s „Optical Media“ I found myself in the possession of a chance camera obscura. Similar pleasures are given to us by Sara Sizer´s paintings.

by Jürgen Drescher