Description
Sarah BELL
Victoria
‘If I Could Hold the World’ 2025
oil on french polyester
61 x 56cm
Figures have reappeared in my landscapes, much as they did during my first pregnancy and while discovering the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker. In many ways, this work is a homage to her. At this time, I found commonality within issues of compatibility of her art with family responsibility. Modersohn-Becker was one of the first women artists to paint herself nude as she searched for her own artistic truth. My figure could be a self-portrait—or not. She could be mother or grandmother. Either way, she grants freedom to to move freely in an Arcadian future, as we navigate a shifting relationship with the natural world. Painted with a restricted palette throughout, she is neither separate from nor inseparate to the environment—neither concealed nor unconcealed. She embodies a joyful resistance, grounded in the sensual and corporeal memory of place. Referencing the Otways rainforest, mountain ash stretch skywards and tree ferns loom above, amidst the fecundity and messiness below.
