The Smallest Gallery in Soho and Cultural Style Week is delighted to present artist Sarah Frances Dias Integration. The work is an exploration of identity, using cultural references and the feminine to create a dialogue with the self and the viewer. The little girl, dressed in traditional / regional clothes from Madeira, the artists hometown, represents the innocence and beauty of cultural specific references, whereas the grown mature woman represents the agglomeration of different cultures in one person, which results in a universal being (integration).
Both figures, in a dialogue with each other, reflect the artists personal journey. The painting as a whole is a celebration of the beauty of cultures and their integration; both the regional and the universal, the specific and the abstract. With this, another layer of meaning can be read where each figure represents these two sides of human identity (one without the other is incomplete): the particular and universal, the child innocence and the mature wise, the past and the future.
About the Artist:
Doctor Sarah Frances Dias, is an architect, artist and researcher in aesthetics who explores (both theoretically and practically) the links between significance and consciousness in art. Born in Oxford, she is currently based between Lisbon and Madeira Island, her hometown. Educated at the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon, with various art and architecture fields of study. She holds a Bachelor degree (in architecture), Masters degree (creation and conceptual development), Specialization Course (sacred art and architecture) and Doctorate Degree concluded with distinction, at the end of 2017, from the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon, with her research theme being ’Core Vales and Principles as Generators of Significance in Architecture, Painting and Sculpture’. With numerous publications in various international peer- reviewed conferences and journals, Sarah’s research is infused into her artwork as she explores the dialogues between poetical narrations, mythology, emotion, allegories and archetypes. Sarah’s work has been exhibited in multiple solo and collective exhibitions in various places around Portugal, Europe and in the Emirates, where she lived for a year. Her artwork is part of numerous prominent art collections throughout Europe, both private and public.
Sarah’s paintings and drawings can be best described as a combination of traditional approaches to image making along with a contemporary perspective; combining the accuracy, delicacy and beauty of Representational Traditional European Painters with the sharp eye, rigor and abstraction of the Contemporary world, specially the precision of photography. Sarah advocates for universality, speaking through compositions that aim to reunite opposing worlds and recombine perspectives. Exploring the dialogues between poetical narrations, mythology, emotion, allegories and archetypes, the works combine multiple references and cross-cultural symbols/archetypes (such as the symbol of the eye or the sphere). Reframing techniques, recomposing vocabularies that speak to the universal aspects of what it means to be human, it is a human story that is being told. She is deeply influenced by the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Rembrandt and Auguste Rodin, all of which she has studied profoundly over the years, especially during her Doctorate research. For Sarah the artistic process itself (which for her is as important as the end result), has the aim of portraying luminosity, depth and dimensionality to the subject while at the same time containing and revealing properties of light, laws of form and codes of proportion, in such a way that reality itself is echoed and created. In Sarah’s eyes, the artist is a scientist in an ever evolving experimental discovery, and each work is always open ended, mutating and growing, day by day, organic and natural, as everything else in nature itself.
instagram.com/sarahfrances_dias
About Cultural Style Week:
Founded by Candy Ellie Graham, Cultural Style Week is a new movement that encourages everyone to boldly embrace their cultural heritage through fashion, hair and beauty.
From 21-27 May, people of all backgrounds wherever they are in the world can take part by proudly showcasing their cultural style wherever they go. The launch of this new global movement will take place in London, one of the most diverse cities in the world on 21 May coinciding with the United Nations World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, a day which recognises the important contributions that different cultures make to global development and harmony.
Through sharing and celebrating what makes us all unique, Cultural Style Week aims to encourage fresh dialogue around cultural acceptance and create opportunities for us all to better understand and celebrate each other.
