Sara Farrell Okamura writes:
Bad ideas, good ideas, choices, anxieties, these are all real, but how do you express them in tangible form?
I grew up by the ocean, lived in urban areas and now reside in the mountains. Beauty lies in the natural phenomenon that surrounds us wherever we call home. The sea, the Great Lakes, the parks are the essence of transcendent joy and renewal. Is it abstract? Is it real? This body of work poses that it is both.
From the kelp forests being rescued by sunflower starfish with the help of conservationists who won’t give up, to those fighting to save protected animals and land, to the decisions, dreams and ideas we choose to make constantly minute by minute— how do we make all these integral parts of life visually concrete?
Relying on the accessibility and the natural characteristics of paint, this is an attempt to give these concepts perceptible articulation.
Sara Farrell Okamura is an artist, writer and arts educator. A working artist for over 35 years, she has created both gallery and public art exhibitions. Farrell Okamura has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council, MASS MoCA, Assets For Artists, Project A.R.T. Fund, Martha Boschen Porter Fund, and Mass Cultural Council. Having exhibited her work nationally and internationally, she has most recently focused on local venues in the greater New England and Hudson Valley areas. Farrell Okamura was Co-Director of 1935 Gallery, Chicago, curating exchanges with artists from Mexico; and Director of Northern Berkshire Creative Arts, a community program on the campus of MASS MoCA. She has been a museum educator at MASS MoCA in North Adams MA, and at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield MA. Sara Farrell Okamura has written art reviews for The Brooklyn Rail, Boston Art Review, Art Spiel, and Hyperallergic.
