How to Build a Rainbow

Works by Sarah DePetris

December 2, 2022 - January 28, 2023

Dale Brock & Visiting Angels Gallery

Exhibition Statement

How to Build a Rainbow is an exhibition of new multi-dimensional drawings by Dallas-based artist Sarah DePetris. The works capture the energy and potential of the almost and the not-yet-made. With imagery of found stones, rainbows, bricks, and abstracted landscapes, the exhibition reimagines its subjects as icons and objects of potential. Exploring the distance between absence and presence, the work transforms the gallery into an immersive space of possibility. The play between positive and negative space in the 2D works balances the visual weightlessness of the suspended casts and contrasts heavier and more grounded marks and subjects. The exhibition makes the heavy light and blurs the boundary between the real and imagined. The project exists physically as a series of oil paintings, multimedia drawings and a site-specific installation. How to Build a Rainbow is an exhibition about process, exploration, and experimentation. By creating paintings, drawings, and sculptures drawn from often invisible sites, objects, and debris, the labor-intensive process gives them permanence and value. Through repetition and time-intensive processes, they capture the tension and potential embodied in the almost and the not-yet-made. The exhibition invites the viewer to navigate the space between opposites as thresholds of possibility.

Artist Statement

Working across media, I create multi-dimensional drawings of the almost and the not-yet-made. Emphasizing mark-making and process, I make paintings, installations, and sculptures inspired by piles of rubble and construction debris. My works re-imagine found rocks, bricks and rebar as icons and objects of potential. Paused between destruction and resurrection, they have a wholeness that cannot exist in a realized state. Blending the figurative with the abstract, my works contrast believable and impossible renderings of space and depth. Often visually or physically ephemeral, they visually break down, expand and rebuild their surfaces, subjects, and sites. By dissolving the boundary between the made and unmade, my works create accessible and tangible bridges between the real and imagined. Distorting the relationships between viewer, figure, ground, and space, my works blur the distance between absence and presence, longing and the unattainable. My installations, sculptures and paintings make the heavy light and invite the viewer to navigate the space between opposites as places of possibility.

Bio

Sarah DePetris is a Dallas-based artist whose practice integrates painting, installation, and sculpture. She makes multi-dimensional drawings that capture the energy and potential of the almost and the not-yet-made. Abstracting imagery of found piles of rubble and construction debris, her works are bridges between the real and imagined. DePetris exhibits her work nationally, in both group and solo exhibitions. She has current and upcoming solo exhibitions at Arts Fort Worth, Cora Stafford Gallery, and Box13 ArtSpace. Her works were recently highlighted in solo exhibitions and installations at Tank Space in Houston,Texas and at Arts Fort Worth in 2021. She completed her first public art installation at the Art Tooth Art South Box at SOMA Fort Worth and participated in the Art Tooth studio residency at Muse during the summer of 2021. Her works are included in the permanent collections of Capital One and the University of Texas at Tyler. DePetris received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2009 and is currently pursuing an MFA in Drawing and Painting at the College of Visual Arts and Design of the University of North Texas. In addition to her practice, DePetris also works as a drawing and painting instructor and Teaching Fellow.