Sara Roberts
Sara Roberts (b. 1982, Sydney, Australia) is a contemporary painter whose work explores the interplay between the natural world and the human experience. Raised across Mexico, France, Sweden, Poland, and Australia, her diverse cultural background informs the atmospheric, dreamlike quality of her paintings. She studied Visual Art (Honours) at the University of Sydney and earned an MFA in Painting under the supervision of Lindy Lee.
Roberts’ practice is rooted in oil painting, using a meticulous layering technique of adding and subtracting while maintaining a contemporary sensibility. Her compositions balance realism with abstraction, often featuring solitary figures immersed in vast, luminous landscapes that evoke a sense of wonder, nostalgia, and introspection. Her work is both expansive and intimate—capturing the ephemeral, fleeting moments where time seems to stand still.
Her paintings have been exhibited in Australia and Los Angeles and are held in private collections worldwide, including in Dubai, Hong Kong, France, the UK, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, and Denmark. In 2024, she won Bluethumb Art Gallery’s Landscape Art Prize, and in 2015, she was recognized by Saatchi Art as ‘One to Watch’ and an ‘Artist to Invest In.’
Currently based in Shoalhaven Heads, NSW, Roberts draws inspiration from the coastal landscapes around her, using water, reflections, and shifting light as metaphors for memory, perception, and the unseen connections between people and nature. Her paintings invite viewers to step into a world where reality and dreams merge—an invitation to slow down, observe, and feel deeply the present moment.
Artist Statement
My work exists on the threshold between the tangible and the imagined, between landscape and dreamscape. Through oil painting, I explore the profound and often delicate relationship between humans and nature, crafting ethereal worlds where light, water, and figures dissolve into one another.
Painting is my way of capturing fleeting moments—those rare instances when time slows, and we become acutely aware of our surroundings. I am drawn to the spaces where land meets water, where reflections blur the lines between reality and illusion. These landscapes, often inspired by my home on the South Coast of Sydney, are not just physical places but portals into memory, emotion, and the unseen forces that shape our existence.
My process is deeply intuitive, built upon thin layers of oil paint that interact and evolve over time. This technique allows me to create depth, movement, and an otherworldly glow. By blending soft edges with pockets of vivid colour, I seek to capture the transient nature of light—how it shifts, refracts, and alters our perception of space.
Figures, often small within the vast landscapes, serve as quiet focal points. They are wanderers, dreamers, and explorers—mirroring the viewer’s own journey of contemplation. Their presence invites an emotional response, asking us to consider our place within the natural world and the unseen narratives that unfold around us.
Underlying my work is a fascination with contrast: expansion and contraction, presence and absence, stillness and motion. Some pieces feel immersive and boundless, while others focus on intimate details—like tiny figures lost in the vastness of a sea or a bonfire flickering in the night. This duality reflects my ongoing exploration of the universe’s infinite scale and the deeply personal moments that make up our lives.
Ultimately, my paintings are an invitation to pause, to step into a world that exists beyond words, and to feel the quiet beauty of simply being.
www.sararoberts.com.au
