Sara Breinlinger is a London-based painter and collage-maker. Her early years were spent moving from country to country through Europe, Asia and the Middle East. There weren’t many constants, but making, painting and drawing were always a way for her to make sense of things.
After studying fine art at Middlesex Polytechnic, Sara went on to gain a PhD in Psychology and later trained as a psychotherapist. For the past twenty years, Sara has combined her art practice with a career as a psychotherapist. Whilst these two parts of her world are distinct, there is much of her art that explores a psychological narrative.
The pieces that make up her collage work all originate from her large archive of old paintings, drawings, scribbles, writings and notebooks often going back decades. The work is driven by a very tactile process of cutting up old work, reworking and reconfiguring into new compositions. Everything gets recycled eventually!
In her work displaced forms, fragments, memories and colours are pieced together and built on one another to create new connections and meanings. She thinks of it as a disorderly attempt to make sense of things, and in the finished pieces she is usually aiming for a composition that is both balanced and one that can contain life’s complexity and strangeness. The results are dynamic abstract compositions; colourful, playful and full of movement.
Sara’s works are owned worldwide and have been used by interior designers and art directors in film and tv.
Education
Birkbeck College, University of London - PhD BSc and PhD psychology
Middlesex University - Fine Art Foundation/BA
Exhibitions
2022 - Fresh Art Fair
2022 - KIFF - Kunst Im Fluss - Kunstforumeifel in Schneider, Gemünd
2021 - Boo’s Closet Gallery, Notting Hill - No Such Thing as Solid Ground - Solo Show
2019 - Open Studios Hackney
2019 - Broth Art @ Chatsworth Road
2018 - Maybe a Mole, London - Group Show
2008 - The East End Arts Club Shoreditch Town Hall Group Show
1993 - St. George’s Church Crypt, Bloomsbury - Solo Show
Awards
2022 - Contemporary Collage Magazine