Meet Sara, an Argentinean painter who now works from her studio in East London. Sara’s canvases are a cocktail of colours that do not fail to make you stare, taking inspiration from places such as fashion magazines and digital worlds. Emotive strokes are made either digitally or with oil paints in this artist’s creative ventures and the scale of her work range from handbag size to ginormous. Mentioned in the likes of Vogue and i-D magazine, plus represented by galleries around the globe, Sara is well and truly an emerging artist on a meteoric rise.
Here, we chat with the young artist to get to know her better.
Tell me about yourself, your work, and how you became an artist?
Hi, I am Sara Rainaldi, I’m 28 years old and a practicing artist. I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina into a creative family. My mum loves opera and my father paints. The day I decided I wanted to pursue a painting career was back in 2007 when I joined my father watching TV on a Sunday afternoon. He was watching Pollock by Pollock. Watching Pollock at the studio through the screen, gave me an overwhelming sense of visual freedom I had never experienced before. I remember after watching that film, which was prior to Instagram and more developed search engines, I would ask my father what the name of that artist was because I needed to know more about him. I would find the freedom of his body dancing on top of the canvas while dripping paint super pleasing. It was a bit of an awakening because I realised what I could do with life. And I was quite young at that time, just 13. Then my parents would gift me books on Pollock and introduce me to Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning paintings. I would look at these three artists during all my teenage years, but at the same time I would obsessively look at magazines to understand what was going on around the rest of the world. And what I always enjoyed especially about fashion magazines was the opportunity to gather information on how different parts of the world would understand a season. Although now I’m older I’m a bit more skeptical on this. Anyways, after finishing secondary school I went to study Fine Art at the National University of Arts of Buenos Aires (U.N.A) and one night in 2014 I had this dream in which I was painting on top of those fashion I used to collect when I was a teen. I woke up the next morning, went to class and then when I got back home at night I started the series of paintings in which I would paint on top of fashion magazines, which led me to be part of some really interesting collaborations around the world. I stopped this series by the end of 2015, early 2016. I always wished to make those works in billboard size but at that time it wasn’t possible so I left the idea on the side. In 2017 I was doing a job as an art director and a friend who was in set told me “Sara you should move to London”. There was something in that comment that really hit me because deep down I knew she was right. I finished my BA, got accepted at Goldsmiths and moved to London in April 2019 to do my MFA. Once at Goldsmiths facilities I had access to a digital printer and started exploring that technique again. I self taught myself on how to use Photoshop as well as printer languages during the first month of the pandemic and explored image construction and how painting traditional languages could engage within digital constrains. I recently got a studio in East London so going back to painting after so many inactive months was a big challenge…but I’m really enjoying it . It is a bit hard to describe my work at the moment as I feel my painting practice is going through a really big change. Like my life also changed but my practice is more important than my life? Before my degree show, I was working with different printing techniques, mixed with painting, but once I graduated I felt that side of my practice was finished as well. Now I not only went back to painting on a white canvas but I also switched to oil painting, something I never experimented with before, so I’m exploring and understanding the process of it.
Silence or music when painting?
It really depends on the day, my mood, and the speed of my thoughts!
3 last songs are:
‘Miranda Mix (Oid Mortales Mix) – Miranda!
‘Hey Ya!’ – Outkast
‘The bolt ballet’ – Shostakovich. Actually, I’m listening to this one while writing this.
Are you an astrology believer? What is your star sign and how is Cancer season affecting it?
Kind of! On Sunday nights I always read what the horoscope predicts for the week ahead. Then I really enjoy seeing how my week goes and whether those predictions become real or not. It’s a very exciting game, but then if things do happen according to my horoscope I wonder if that happened only because I read it and my subconscious is overreacting?! I’m a Sagittarius and recently learned that I’m a rising Scorpio, with an Aries moon, and Sagittarius sun – so very fiery!
I’ve been feeling quite weird this past few days but I’m not sure if it’s because of cancer season or just the lack of caffeine in my system.
What three colours on your palette are you using excessively at the moment?
This is such a difficult question because I use so many colours that I don’t even remember which ones are on my palette. If I chose one then I feel like I’m betraying the other one…but I guess black, pink and green are the 3 colours I’ve been using the most recently.
What would your advice be to other aspiring artists?
One sharpener isn’t enough!
What are your future plans?
I have a private solo show in Berlin around September so I’m working on that at the moment. Quite a challenge as I feel my work is changing so much right now. And then I’ll take part in a postcard auction sometime in the last part of the year.
You can find out more about Sara via her website: www.sararainoldi.com
Also, follow her creative journey via her Instagram account ( @sararainoldi_)
All images via artist
