Sarah McEneaney
Sarah McEneaney, Panel Prep Hearing 2022
GAR Distinguished Artist/Teacher: Sarah McEneaney
August 2024
The GAR Distinguished Artist/Teacher (DA/T) is an annual appointment, by invitation of the GAR Committee. The DA/T receives an honorarium and is provided with housing on Rocky Neck. At the start of their seven-day August residency they present a free, public lecture at the at The Cultural Center at Rocky Neck, followed by a four-day workshop at Montserrat College.
Sarah McEneaney's paintings are autobiographical narratives. She makes detailed and highly colored paintings of personal events, from the mundane to the horrific. She records the daily life of an artist actively engaged in the world. The scenes, moments and details are as carefully selected and edited as the formal decisions of color, line and perspective.
My paintings are autobiographical narratives. Working from drawings, memory, observation, imagination and photographs I make detailed and highly colored paintings. Personal events, from the mundane to the horrific, describe universal themes as I record the daily life of an artist actively engaged in the world. Though very direct, even factual, the paintings read less as memoir and more like creative non-fiction. The scenes, moments and details are as carefully selected and edited as the formal decisions of color, line and perspective.
Her workshop at Montserrat College of Art in August 2024 focused on developing the independent visual voice of each student through one-on-one critiques, group discussions of work, and technical guidance. Students experienced a lively environment of experimentation and imagery drawn from a variety of sources.
McEneaney (b. 1955, Munich, Germany) is a Philadelphia-based artist and community activist, who is well known for creating intricately detailed and intimately autobiographical works. She graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia in 1979.
Her solo exhibitions have included Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA; the Institute of Contemporary Art and Locks Gallery, both Philadelphia; Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York and the List Gallery, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA. McEneaney is the recipient of a number of grants including a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, an Anonymous Was A Woman Grant , an Independence Foundation Fellowship, and a grant from The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
She has been an artist in residence at the Tyrone Guthrie Center, Annaghmakerrig, Ireland; The Brodsky Center at PAFA Philadelphia; Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Co. Mayo, Ireland; The Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans; Chianti Foundation Marfa, TX,; Yaddo ,Saratoga Springs, NY; and the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH, among others. McEneaney’s work is in the permanent collections of many museums including, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA;; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Sarah McEneaney is represented by Locks Gallery, Philadelphia and Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
Learn more about Sarah
