I create large-scale drawings using graphite drawing pencils on Arches watercolor paper. The subject matter of my work is generally narrative portraiture with elements of symbolism; though clearly realistic in style, these drawings are more conceptual in scope. Most of my subjects (primarily self-portraits) have been juxtaposed against objects that have a personal significance to me, and often they are imbued with an intentionally humorous or mysterious undertone.
The springboard for most of my imagery is personal experience. As a result, the drawings serve as a visual documentation of not only ideas, but also events from my life.
The drawing History Lesson I: Whitewash the Past stems from my childhood in a very liberal college town in the South. Influenced by the writing of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, I was aware of the strange dichotomy of growing up in this region, and I had both a love of the mysterious landscape and the knowledge of the indignity of its unfavorable past. Another work, Soliloquy (Remorse) is a more intimate drawing that features a histrionic self-portrait with multiple guises of guilt.
Gradually, my work has evolved from purely personal experience to also encompass ideas that have a more general relevance. The Daughters of Lucy (lost, abandoned, and torn asunder) is based on the Australopithecus afarensis fossil skeleton "Lucy" who I have used as the mother figure - a symbol of our shared evolutionary heritage. The women's hands are inscribed with the words "lost", "forsaken" or "abandoned" in numerous languages and they are clumped together but literally separate, to be evocative of the Tower of Babel parable. This work is a reflection on the fact that circumstance, government, wars, and geography have separated and fragmented the women of the world to the point of detachment from empathy and these same factors that keep us fragmented likewise keep us from responding with instinctual compassion to others in need.
Sarah Petruziello was born in Athens, Georgia in 1969. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of Georgia in 1994 and dual Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in Graphic Design and Drawing and Painting from the University of Georgia in 1991, graduating with Summa cum laude honors. She currently lives in South Orange, New Jersey, is an active member of the Exhibitor's Co-op, an artist critique and exhibition group, and teaches drawing as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University. Her work is in the Presidential Art Collection at the University of Georgia and other private collections in the United States and Europe.
Sarah received a Grant for Working Artists from the George Sugarman Foundation in 2007 and was the recipient of a New Jersey State Council of the Arts 2006 Artist Fellowship for Works on Paper.