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Sarah Vedder

(b. 1946)

Contemporary Tonalist Landscape Painter of California

by Jeremy Tessmer

Sarah Vedder is a contemporary landscape painter based in Carpinteria, California. Vedder is among a unique group of painters who recognize the importance of the recent confluence of the environmental movement with the rediscovery of the tradition of American landscape painting. Her work is characterized by the combination of traditional 19th landscape painting with 20th century abstract painting sensibilities.

 

Table Of Contents
 
Spring in Carpinteria Marsh
2002
36" x 44"
Oil on canvas
Available
In this work, Sarah's carefully controlled palette allows wonderful depth while also filling the atmosphere with a quality which suggests a total absence of human interference.
 

I. Biography

This section is under construction.
 

II. An Analysis of the Artist's Work

I want to make my work reflective and emotionally resonant. I use a limited palette, in keeping with the contemporary art precept of creating richness of result with economy of means. I am interested in relative value, and in using composition to support the emotional content of the painting. I have been influenced by the tonalist movement in American art, with its emphasis on the essential aspect of a landscape rather than the specific or incidental. My goal is to awaken an emotional response in the viewer. — Sarah Vedder

Sarah Vedder was originally trained as an Abstract Expressionist. The artist notes that painting of that sort requires commitments of time and energy that she couldn't make as a mother of two children. Eventually, her children grew up and she returned to painting. As the environmental movement galvanized in Santa Barbara with Ray Strong's Oak Group of painters, Sarah found an artistic project she could really get behind.

Her paintings still reflect a solid understanding of various formalist concerns that would have been important to early modernist and abstract expressionist artists. At the same time, her palette suggests contemporary tonalism. In each of her works, a reverence for untouched nature sings through softly painted scenes. The soft edges of mountains, clouds, marshes, and clusters of chaparral evoke the memory of a time when the land was still virgin.
 
Winter Willow 2001
16" x 24"
Oil on canvas
Available
Here, the light of dusk in winter is felt as much as painted. The mood of the painting is contemplative. The artist often relates her work to the Transcendentalist movement of the early nineteenth century.
 

III. Exhibitions

  • 2005 "Anima Mundi", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 2003, 2002 Sullivan Goss, Ltd., Montecito, CA
  • 2002 Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
  • 1998-2002 Marin Agricultural Land Trust, Marin, CA
  • 2000, 1998, 1993 Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 1998 Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, CA
  • 1997, 1996 California Heritage Gallery, San Francisco, CA
  • 1996, 1995, 1994, 1992, 1990-87 Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 1999, 1997 Nature Conservancy, Santa Cruz Island, CA
  • 1996 Ellen Easton Gallery, Montecito, CA
  • 1993 The Columbia Club Foundation, Indianapolis, IN
  • 1992 C.I. Clark Galleries, Bakersfield, CA
  • 1992-87 Arlington Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 1977, 1975 Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, CA
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    IV. Education

  • Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO
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    V. Honors & Awards

  • 1997-2001 California Art Club Gold Medal Show, Pasadena, CA
  • 1997-2002 Artist Member, Oak Gropu, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 2002 Honorable Mention, Santa Barbara County Art Fund, Santa Barbara, CA
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    Big River.
    By the River Santa Ynez.
    Carpinteria Field.
    Chileno Valley.
    Evening at La Purisima.
    Field Mountains, Montecito 1986.
    Flood Tide, MacKerricher
    Glenn Annie.
    Marsh Reflections, Carpinteria.
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