Sarah C.B. Guthrie

Sarah's Craft

The W Gallery is pleased to announce Garden
Party: Cheers to Joy by Seattle-based
artist Sarah C.B. Guthrie will debut

For almost a decade, artist Sarah C.B. Guthrie has been inquiring into Joy—what it is, how to find it, and why we all deserve it. “I've come to see Joy is an optimism of spirit we all carry within us. It’s sparked through our actions and, unlike happiness, is not dependent on our circumstances to be felt. Paradoxically, we can feel Joy at the same time we feel anger, sadness, and grief.”

In her upcoming exhibit, Garden
Party: Cheers to Joy, Guthrie, whose family emigrated to the States when she was a toddler, turns her attention to her childhood and family memories of return visits England.

A professional artist based in Seattle,
Washington, Sarah C.B. Guthrie has been inquiring into Joy through her painting and writing since early 2017. Her paintings have been part of solo and group shows across the U.S. in galleries, businesses, and museums, including at the prestigious Phillips Collection and Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. In Seattle, she is represented by Fogue Studios & Gallery in the Georgetown district and Moxie Fine Arts. An immigrant from the UK, she holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is married to a retired
U.S. Marine.

“So many of my memories of returning back to England were about times spent in the garden, exploring, smelling flowers, getting lost in the colors of blooms, and enjoying cups of tea and biscuits. If it was later in the day, before supper, I'd watch the adults clink their delicate sherry glasses and say chin-chin with a wink and smile. For this exhibit, I wanted to tell those stories of joy and connection through color,” said Guthrie.

In this collection, Guthrie brings an array of vibrant abstract paintings, created in her signature style--an orderly repetition of softly-squared petal shapes, evoking Impressionists and mid-century Abstract Expressionists artists. Guthrie carefully loads her brush so each mark has dozens of slender lines of color, bringing the surface to life in a way that engages the viewer in optically mixing the colors–inviting them into the process of creating Joy.

“My hope is that show visitors will experience Joys they can bring into their day-to-day lives and connections with family, friends, and community,” she shared.