Sarah Jane Palmer

Sarah Jane Palmer is a Sheffield-based multidisciplinary artist and educator whose practice spans installation, inflatable sculpture, painting, animation, film and printmaking. Drawn to the edges of perception, she works with ideas around visual hallucinations, dreams, geometry, pattern and historical archives — creating work that invites an unexpected shift in how we see.

Sarah's practice is rooted in making the invisible visible — exploring the threshold between what is seen and unseen, known and unknown. Working in a collaborative and research-led way, she draws on partnerships with scientists, communities and institutions to investigate ideas around visual perception, sight loss and the ways in which the mind constructs and deceives the eye. Her work often emerges through long-term enquiry, taking unexpected forms across a range of materials and media.

In 2004 Sarah graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, and in 2013 received an MA in Fine Art with distinction. Alongside her studio practice she works extensively as an artist educator and creative learning facilitator, collaborating with galleries, schools and community organisations across the north of England.

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  1. Barbara Hepworth, The Family of Man at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
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    Barbara Hepworth: The Family of Man

    Each of the nine sculptures which make up The Family Of Man represents a stage of life, with the sculptures' abstract forms becoming more sophisticated in composition as they mature.
  2. Detail of Willem Boshoff – Flagstone 2016 which reads "Gutta cavat Lapidem,"at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
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    Willem Boshoff: Flagstone

    Willem Boshoff’s Flagstone is a sculpture and a seat, positioned here overlooking Upper Lake to provide a space for rest and contemplation. In summer 2018, Boshoff spent a month at YSP, researching and meticulously recording the flora and fauna. Each day he walked the paths around the Park and became particularly fond of the areas around the Lakes. The residency was followed by an exhibition in Upper Space and the subsequent gift of Flagstone as a permanent work for YSP’s landscape.
  3. Jaume Plensa, Wilsis in the snow at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
    Art Outdoors

    Jaume Plensa: Wilsis

    Wilsis appears to be deep in thought or dreaming. Her eyes are closed and she is inward-looking and self-contained, remote from the present moment and the beauty of the surrounding scenery. Although monumental in size at over 7 metres high, this sculpture depicts a normal girl, rather than immortalising a traditionally extraordinary or powerful person.
  4. Thomas J Price, Network, 2013. Private Collection. Courtesy Hales Gallery at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
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    Thomas J Price: Network

    In Network, Thomas J. Price continues his exploration of identity and representation. He creates sculptures that represent people of African descent to disrupt the typified figures shown in classical Roman and Greek art, and to question who we chose to celebrate in artworks.