By the Sea

From the Artist

I care about interacting with the materials and the physical world. Maybe it comes from an agricultural impulse: to cultivate the land and to shape it, to make patterns, to grow; to grow artistically. I have the impulse to draw and to create atmosphere, mood, or ambiance, and it’s been my push to fuse the photographic and the hand-drawn.
_{—Excerpted from https://www.theartblog.org/2014/04/to-work-as-the-spirit-moves-me-an-interview-with-sarah-van-keuren/, accessed 7-14-2021}

Van Keuren's By The Sea—with its depiction of featureless stone-like figures, recorded by a pinhole camera, looking upon an ocean glowing in yellow, from a vantage point high above the water—addressesenvironmental pollution. Large choppy blocks of blue appear above and below in the frame of the print. She depicts water and air so soiled that they are virtually unrecognizable. The strong black and overlapping blue lines form a window through which the viewer sees a lifeless world.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}