Piece of the Week: ‘Observation’ by Sarah Sifers

From the outset, “Observation” by Sarah Sifers looks like a formalist exercise in documentation and illustration, but it’s only once I took the time to umm… observe did I see a much more complex experiment in design unfold. “Observation” features a series of clashing images, colors, and iconography. The monochromatic background works against the large geometric colorful shape, and the carefully rendered anatomical and scientific drawings clash with a poetic phrase, “observation on the air, soil and waters.”

I think the power in Sarah’s work is in her skillful arrangement of artifacts of things that have passed. In “Observation” and throughout her portfolio there is a consistent rendering of a traditional modernist collage approach: one that uses the unexpected clash, and allegiance of unexpected images paired together to generate a new meaning or effect.

What that meaning or affect actually does is up to each individual viewer, but “Observation” seems to be about studying the world around us, the natural world, and the color-filled vibrancy of being alive.

For its delicate examination of our natural world, “Observation” is our Piece of the Week.