Artist Statement/ Biography

Sara Sowell is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker working in 16mm film, sound, installation and performance. Her projects are often narrated by the historical and aesthetic implications of artist movements in America. By re-photographing existing media onto hand-processed film, Sowell’s practice considers art history, cinema and television as cultural products of capital that are continuously reinforced by patriarchal structures. Her use of improvisational camera work, photochemical experimentation, and rhythmic reconstruction of images encourage new attitudes in relation to artistic patrimony. In her performance and installation work, Sowell constructs various recontextualizations of film projections into sculptures and live performances to expand the physical site of the projected image and intervene in the hegemony of the film frame.

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Sara Sowell is an interdisciplinary artist who works with moving-image, sound, performance and installation. Her work reanimates legacies of art and media production with irreverence through photographic abstraction and chance methods. Her work has shown in international festivals, artist-run spaces and galleries including _underscore, Milwaukee, WI; CROSSROADS 2022, San Francisco, CA; The Wexner Center, Columbus, OH; Antimatter [Media Art], Victoria, BC; Baltic Analog Lab, Cēsis, LV; and The Film-makers’ Cooperative, New York. She is currently teaching multidisciplinary arts and film courses in Milwaukee, WI. Born in Houston, Texas, Sowell received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and MFA in Cinematic Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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