Women United ART PRIZE 2023
Painting & Drawing Category
finalist

ARTIST BIO

Sandra Cavanagh’s career began in 1997, after completing a Foundation in Fine Arts and a BA degree from the Kent Institute of Art and Design, University of Kent, UK. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Cavanagh’s first two decades were pitched on the tensions between a loving family life and constant political upheavals, unrestrained military governments and the ominous danger of politically sanctioned brutality and censorship. She read Social Sciences at the University of Belgrano, Buenos Aires before emigrating to California and later to the UK where she completed studies in Fine Art. She returned to full residency in the United States in 2010 and has worked and resided in New York City ever since.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Maintaining a consistent practice, I have developed a large portfolio of work including paintings, drawings and prints. I sustain a mostly narrative focus, often as a reaction to sociopolitical events with the intention of codifying ideas and feelings. Within this development, various subjects recur, such as the mythological feminine as a vehicle to explore patriarchal brutality and its weight on the collective, the consideration of mortality and the loss of innocence in transgenerational stories, visceral reactions both to memories and events of current general concern. I often worked in series, creating pictorial storylines with some urgency to exhaust the subject and form to the point of understanding or unburdening myself of it. The result is an annotation of feelings underscoring a dramatic approach to form and message.

Brooklyn, NY / United States