Sarah C.B. Guthrie holds an M.F.A in Visual Arts at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, an M.A. from The George Washington University, and a B.A. from Davidson College.

It is a pleasure and privilege to feature Sarah’s series, Social Network, on Longridge Review.

“My cultural production takes many forms, including painting, drawing, and performance; all share a commitment to and explore all manners of communication. I intentionally choose the form that best matches the experience I want for the viewer/audience.

To create the paintings in Social Network, I developed a set of rules to follow in each piece. As I painted, I examined my obsession with those rules and to making the work, which took on a performative aspect. Every day I woke and went straight to the studio. Every night ended in the studio, usually too late. I lost interest in food, sleep, and social events. The work became my social network. The patterns in the work seemed like clusters of relationships like a social network and were inspired by people in my life, landscapes, and even spiritual epiphanies.

As paintings finished, I posted them to Facebook, expanding the social network of the work itself and opening dialog at the level of a global chat, told in character and color limits.”

Sarah’s work expands well beyond the Social Network series. Among other visual art pieces is Pollinate, an intimate look at a painful process; the drawings are detailed and small – 4” x 6” – requiring the viewer to move in closer to experience the piece. It’s dialog at the level of whisper. Corporate Masters considers the question: Given their wealth and power, if corporations are indeed people, wouldn’t they want to be immortalized in a portrait in the style of the great Masters?

Find and follow Sarah on Twitter and Facebook. You may view some of her work for sale on her website, Sarah Guthrie dot com.