Actual size: 97 x 97cm

Explores the discrepancy between outward and inward presentation. The Cockerel symbolising bravado, here with all the trimmings of aristocratic status: Mustard cord, tweed, herringbone etc whilst standing on a box of possibilities and masking inward vulnerability and depression.

Sarah has spent 30 years working with stitch, paint and line in textiles. She is now working conceptually on canvas. In these pieces the focus is no longer depictions to suit a client and their space, but expressions of Sarah's thoughts and feelings.

Each painting is an impression of a being or event that she has either lived as/with or witnessed. She is fascinated with the unspoken emotion behind surface presentation and works to find ways to evoke it in line,colour, texture and symbolic imagery, often drawn from her surroundings and Scottish heritage.

Representations of textiles and textile techniques figure prominently in Sarah's work as they do in her life. She farms a flock of Shetland sheep whose wool she spins, dyes and knits. Her childhood was spent making all sorts with yarn, tips and processes passed on from her mother and grandmother. Sarah uses batik extensively.

Hand and machine embroidery add emphasis and texture to the painted surface. Knits and knitting patterns, often in Fair Isle or Shetland colour work style, appear in her paintings evocative of her female Scottish lineage and knotted ancestral connection with nature.