Featured Work
Exhibition
About
Sarah Gutwirth received her BFA and BA degrees in 1978 from a joint program of Reed College and the Pacific Northwest College of Art. In 2017 she was nominated for the prestigious Joan Mitchell Prize for Painting. She has received grants from Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Murray State University and United University Professions at SUNY. She has had 20 one and two person exhibits over the last twenty-nine years and has had work in numerous group shows.
Her work is in several collections, including the People’s Education Press in Beijing. She held three tenure track teaching positions, receiving tenure at two. She is currently Full Professor of Painting Emerita at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. She has travelled widely and lived in France. She recently retired to Philadelphia where she was born and raised.
Poems in an Unfamiliar Language
”I have long been interested in collections and classification. My current paintings are themselves collections of a kind. They gather imagery derived from the worlds of nature and of art to create a painted collage that suggests a poetic narrative neither linear nor concrete. I start each painting with an overarching concept which is wide and deep, with historical and cultural resonances. Some recent concepts I have chosen as points of departure are Migrations, Liminality, and East/West. I use an inflected grid as my formal organization. It allows me to employ a kind of abstract and flattened matrix for the painting. The grid is an element of modernist composition, and it satisfies my attraction to shallow space in a painting.
The source imagery includes landscape recorded by me and borrowed from paintings, I often photograph skies, reflections, and textures. My work embraces reference to the history of art and design to suggest the resonance of cultural memory. I also use natural history: plants, animals, and rocks partly because they evoke for me our long search to explain the world through classifying and displaying its wonders, and partly because of the long-intertwined history of nature in fine art and decorative arts.”
— Sarah Gutwirth
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024 Natural Philosophies and Cabinets of Meaning, Cathedral Village, Philadelphia, PA
Natural Philosophies, Cosmopolitan Club, (two-person) Philadelphia, PA
2015 Taxonomies and Collections, Courthouse Gallery, Jackson, TN.
2008 Metapaintings, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY.
2005 Two Person Show, Capitol Arts Gallery, Bowling Green, KY
2001 A Drawing Exhibition (two-person), Tippy Stern Fine Art Gallery, Charleston, SC.
2001 Paintings and Drawings, Bethel College Gallery, Newton, KS.
1998 Recent Work, Owensboro Community College, Owensboro, KY.
1997 Engaging Objects, Sacramento Street Gallery, Cambridge, MA.
1996 Body and Soul (two person), Adams Art Gallery, Dunkirk, NY.
1994 The Landscape of Sensation, School of the Munson Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, NY.
1988 Hermetics (two person), Site Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1983 Paintings, Buckley Art Center Gallery, University of Portland, Portland, OR
1979 Two Young Painters (two person), Mayer Gallery, Portland, OR
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 Fresh from the Studio, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE
2024 Gilded Shadows, Park Towne Place (InLiquid), Philadelphia, PA, Claire Finin, Curator
2024 Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce (CFEVA), Philadelphia, PA
2023 Chee Bravo, Sophie Glenn and Sarah Gutwirth, Felicity R “Bebe” Benoleil Gallery, CFEVA, Philadelphia PA, Leah Douglas, Curator
2022 Mixture, CFEVA Members’ Exhibit, Felicity R “Bebe” Benoleil Gallery, CFEVA Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2022 New Now InLiquid new artist members, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019 Drawn from Nature, Audubon Center, Mill Grove, PA.
2018 Frabjous, Openings, St Paul the Apostle Church, NY, NY. Joel Carreiro, Curator
2018 A Winter Juried Collection, Third St. Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. Luella Tripp, Curator
2017 A Starling in Shadow, Cerulean Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. Bill Scott, Curator
2017 Perspectives, Clemens Fine Art Gallery WKCTC, Paducah, KY.
2014 Three Person Show, Courthouse Gallery, Jackson, TN.
2011 Pattern Play, The Living Arts and Science Center, Lexington, KY
2008 Other Worlds/Altered Visions, Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN.
2006 Mark Palmer Gallery, Paducah, KY.
2002 29th Bradley National Print and Drawing Exhibition, Peoria, IL.
2000 50th Mid-States Art Exhibition, Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, IN.
2000 Renaissance Regional Art Exhibit, The Renaissance Center, Dickson, TN.
1998 North Country Regional Exhibition, Gibson Gallery, Potsdam, NY.1995 Regional Matters, Brush
Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY.
1994 Red and Blue on White Walls, Kleinerts Arts Center, Woodstock Guild Woodstock, NY.
1992 Second Annual Convention Days Exhibition, National Women’s Hall of Fame, Seneca Falls, NY
1991 54th Annual Artists of Central New York, Munson Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, NY.
1990 Three Artists IDIA Center, North Conway, N.H.
1987 Exchange Show, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
1986 Juried Show, Showplace Gallery, New Haven, CT
1985 Artists at Erector Square, New Haven, CT
Grants, Fellowships and Awards
2017 Nominated for Joan Mitchell Award in Painting and Sculpture, Joan Mitchell Foundation
2004 CISR Research Grant, Murray State University
2002 Individual Artist’s Grant, Kentucky Foundation for Women
2000 Professional Development Fellowship, Kentucky State Arts Council
2000 Individual Artist’s Grant, Kentucky Foundation for Women
1998 Juror’s First Prize (purchase award) North Country Regional, Roland Gibson Gallery, Potsdam, NY
1997 Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont
1995 Merit Award, Potsdam College
1995 Term Faculty Development Award United University Professional Union. S.U.N.Y.
1994 Term Faculty Development AwardUnited University Professional Union. S.U.N.Y.
1993 Nominator for Diverse Forms, a Regrant Program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
1993 NEA/NSF FIPSE Grant recipient for group development of Coordinated Studies Course
1991 Participant in National Endowment for theHumanities SummerSeminar on Postmodernism
1991 Research and Creative Endeavors Grant. Potsdam College
1990 New Faculty Development Award,United University Professional Union. S.U.N.Y.
1990 Curriculum Diversification New Course Development Grant Dean of Liberal Studies, Potsdam College
1986 Honorable Mention, Juried Show, Showplace Gallery, New Haven, CT
1983-85 Graduate Teaching Assistantship, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Selected Collections
People’s Education Press, Beijing, China
Gainesville College, Gainesville GA.
Richard Brush Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY.
Roland Gibson Gallery, Potsdam College, SUNY, Potsdam, NY.
Various Private Collections
Education
1983-85 MFA in Painting; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Art History Minor: The Modernism of Emily Carr (Minor Thesis)
1974-78 BFA Museum Art School, Portland, OR
1972-78 BA Reed College, Portland, OR: Joint degree program
Languages: Fluent French, Beginning Italian