Sarah Peters (Visual and Studio Arts Lecture Series)

My sculptures draw from diverse iconographic influences: from Assyrian antiquities, Greco-Roman tragedy masks, Egyptian funerary figures, and Cypriotic portraits to early American folk art and early modernist figuration. Imagery of sex dolls, ventriloquist dummies, robots and aliens also come into play. Referencing antiquity and using the imagery of gods in a contemporary context enables me to explore themes ranging from power and authority to gender and psychology and allows me to question the politics of power and the authority of historical tradition. In this way, I hope to insert my own feminine presence into a predominantly masculine canon.


Sarah Peters lives and works in Queens, NY. She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and BFA from The University of Pennsylvania and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She is a recipient of awards and residencies from the National Academy Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, John Michael Kohler Artist Residency, WI; New York Foundation for the Arts; The Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; and The Sharpe-Wallentas Art Studio Program. Solo and two-person exhibitions include NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, New York, NY (2019); Howards Gallery, Athens, GA (2019); Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Bennington, VT (2019); Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY (2018); Halsey McKay Gallery, New York, NY (2017); Eleven Rivington, New York (2015); 4 AM, New York (2015); Bodyrite (with Mira Dancy) at Asya Geisberg, NY (2014); and John Davis Gallery, Hudson, NY (2013). Group exhibitions include Samaritans, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, New York, NY (2019); No Patience for Monuments, Perrotin Gallery, Seoul, South Korea (2019) Objects Like Us, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2018); and Rodin and the Contemporary Figurative Tradition, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI (2017), among others. Her work has been reviewed and featured in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art in America, Artforum, and The Brooklyn Rail.

Each year, The Visual and Studio Arts at Sarah Lawrence College coordinates a program of lectures by prominent contemporary artists. This series showcases artists currently exhibiting their work on campus, giving students and the public insight into their wide-ranging material processes and into the conceptual underpinnings of their work. In addition, faculty members across disciplines invite artists to participate in the series as a way to enhance issues integral to our classroom and curriculum, and to stimulate a wider dialogue around topical issues of contemporary art.