Sarah Slappey, Picture by Cannava © The artist
Sarah Slappey (b. 1984, Columbia, SC) is a Brooklyn-based painter known for her grotesque yet sensual surrealistic compositions that reimagine the female nude. Her work explores themes of sexuality, vulnerability and female subjectivity through contorted hands, limbs and breasts rendered with a luminous sensitivity to light. Infused with dark humor and provocative imagery, her paintings subvert traditional depictions of the female form, blending feminine and phallic symbols in ways that eroticize the grotesque and challenge male-dominated art history.
Slappey earned her MFA from Hunter College in 2016 and has since exhibited widely in solo and group shows at prominent venues such as Sargent’s Daughters (New York), Maria Bernheim Gallery (Zurich), Pace Gallery (Hong Kong) and ICA Miami. Her works are held in major collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, D.C.), Pérez Art Museum (Miami), the Albertina Museum (Vienna), MAMCO (Geneva) and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam).
Her paintings have been reviewed by Artforum, The New Yorker and Artnet, among others, cementing her reputation as an important contemporary artist redefining the female gaze in art.