Sarah Rapson’s work is made with a material economy of means that is present across her oeuvre. Her grainy films are black-and-white; her paintings are visually sparing in tones of ivory and black. Her wall-based works are made and remade from decades of printed matter, as well as more traditional oil on linen, or ink on paper. With an understated nod to the high poetic legacy of institutional critique or simply declaring their own impermanence, her work often incorporates precise art material, including sections of the New York Times art reportage. These flagrant re-workings of her desire, to be, say, the painter, attribute to that old and romantic history with the impossibilities of art.

Sarah Rapson was born in London in 1959. Rapson studied at Hornsey College of Art in London (1979-81), L’Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France (1982-3), Whitney Independent Study program New York (1990-91). Recently her work has been shown at Essex Street Gallery, New York, NY, USA; Modern Art Paris, MACRO, Rome, Italy; Secession Vienna, KW Berlin, Bonner Kunsthalle, Frac Lorraine Metz, White Columns, New York, NY, USA. Writing about her work has appeared in Artforum, Texte Zur Kunst, Burlington Contemporary, and Art Monthly.