The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2019 - Issue 26

Sara Pope Jada Brookes admires pop-art creative Sara Pope’s work, who uses the lips as the focus of her paintings and draws a lot of inspiration from her commercial background working in magazines and fashion. bite artist profile A khenaton, Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty once said, “The lips of the wise are as the doors of a cabinet; no sooner are they opened, but treasures are poured out before thee.” There is certainly something unique about lips, the soft, movable tactile sensory organ that we humans use for food intake, articulation of sound and speech, and for kissing. It is this particular part of the body that contemporary artist Sara Pope focuses on when creating her works of art. Known for her paintings of bold, colourful, voluptuous lips, Sara aims to capture the glamour and seductive power conveyed by a pair of lips. She achieves the high shine gloss look in her paintings, which imitates the slickness of advertising with a photographic shoot, a model, some make-up, and several thin layers of oil. To get the right effect and explore the ideas of communication, Sara would ask the model to think of emotions, love, happiness, or flirtation, which she cap- tures photographically. Sara started with a degree in Mathematics. After realising she could not ignore her cre- ative side, she moved to Barcelona where she completed a course in graphic design and then returned to the UK to work in maga- zines as a designer and art director. Having a passion for shoe design, Sara set up a busi- ness customising shoes. She was approached by avant-garde fashion designer Robert Cary Williams to design a collection of shoes for his London FashionWeek show. This inspired her to study for a diploma in Shoe Design at the London College of Fashion. Since then she has worked as a shoe designer for many high-end brands including Paul Smith and Lacoste, as well as freelance catwalk projects for brands such as Baby Phat, Gharani Strok and consultancy work for Jemima Vine.With a desire to do more than just design a product, Sara wanted to create something from a more subconscious level so she became self-taught in art, working spe- cifically with lips. Whether it is normal lips, neon lips or sculptures of lips, every Sara Pope crea- tion is immaculate and precise. Her work was recently shown at Imitate Modern in Shoreditch where The Stage, the area’s first theatreland, is being developed. Interestingly, the remains of Shakespeare’s CurtainTheatre were discovered on the site in 2011, lying three metres below the surface of the devel- opment.The Elizabethan playhouse opened in 1577 in Hewitt Street and continued staging plays until 1624. ‘Villanelle’, an oil painting on gesso covered circular wood panel shows a pair of black glossy lips with teeth and tongue. ‘Scarlet Scarlet’, also an oil painting on gesso covered circular wood panel but with a 24-carat gold leaf background, has the beautiful gloss of red lips that appear to be talking to you but you’re trying to hear what they are saying. While, ‘Crime of Passion Pink’, oil on gesso covered circular wood panel with 24-carat gold leaf background and leopard print relief background is sensational. I really like ‘Freestyle’ which shows a series of women’s lips in different positions. Some are closed, others are opened and the rest have the tongue sticking out at the side of the mouth. Sara also specialises in neon pieces and augments the lips oil painting by adding a neon light outline. She mixes the tradition- ally high brown medium of oil paint with the historically low culture medium of neon to achieve a compelling juxtaposition. One of her pieces entitled ‘Lit’ illustrates this work. When asked what it is about art that cap- tures her attention, Sara replied, “Art can be so completely engaging; it can be philo- sophical, psychological, political, beautiful… so many things that stimulate thought, imag- ination and emotion.” She draws a lot of her inspiration from her commercial background working in magazines and fashion which she says encompasses communication and expression through the image. Her studies in mathematics also play in her work in terms of her interest in beauty. Artist Profile