Dunn Deals: Cover Artist Sarah Dunn
by Jamey Landry
Her gallery whimsically brings to mind that joke about mullet haircuts: “Business in the front, party in the back!” The ground floor of Sarah Dunn’s Covington gallery is what would be expected of an art gallery. Businesslike and neat, it is filled with paintings for sale and a few interesting pieces on display that could be for sale, if an offer were made.
The “party” is in the upstairs studio, and it indeed looked as though a party had just cleared out. There were endless containers of paint, brushes and canvas, and many paintings in various stages of completion, all patiently waiting for the next painting party to begin. To Sarah, her gallery is more than a showroom and studio. It has a mission to build awareness of the evolution of art.
Sarah explains that, to her, art evolution is the natural growth process of art, extending beyond what the study of art history alone teaches. Furthering that, abstract art is symbolic of both itself and of art’s evolution. People are missing the point, she fears. “They don’t get that art changes. It’s not just the masters that you learn about in your history book,” Sarah extols. “Art is everything going on around you; it’s film, music, painting, sculpture and graphic design. It’s all interconnected, and it’s all changing constantly. Art represents a social change, and I just want people to become more aware of that.” Sarah’s goal is to enable people to recognize the changes and embrace them to better experience art’s evolution firsthand.
“Those are some of the reasons why I opened a gallery,” Sarah explains. Another reason is that she wants “to paint what I want to paint and I want to create what I want to create.” For an abstract artist, Sarah admits that may sound selfish, but she is far from selfish at all. In fact, one of the “missions” of her gallery is to be able to offer small, practically individualized art instruction—“coaching,” as Sarah is quick to point out. The small classes of three permit Sarah to work with students and help them release the artistry she feels we all carry bottled up inside.
In addition to showcasing her own art, Sarah looks for other artists to feature in her gallery. It is part of her goal of encouraging her gallery to be thought of as a center for creative thinking about art. She feels Covington needs a really big breakout artist, such as New Orleans’ George Rodrigue. Sarah hopes to inspire people to talk about art and become more involved in art as artists and patrons and even just as people who like to look at pretty pictures. Then, buzz will build that reveals Covington’s breakout artist. “We’re already an artsy little community. We just need someone out there going ‘Come on out and let’s do it! Let’s teach y’all how to paint and teach y’all how to appreciate art!’ I really wanted to do that, just bring art to the community so people could see it.”
As part of her quest to get people talking about art on the northshore, Sarah is currently hosting a radio talk show on Saturdays from 3 to 5 p.m. on WGSO 990am. The name of the show is “Art Evolution.” Callers are encouraged to talk with Sarah and her guests about artists, galleries and shows in the New Orleans and northshore areas. Doing the radio show is a chance to promote herself, obviously, but other artists as well. “I’m out there to promote everybody else along with me. My main goal is art for the community. Art Evolution is my stand!”
Regarding her own unique style, Sarah likes to paint abstracts because “it’s just groovy!” She continues, “It’s just something that comes out. My mom had a crazy hot-pink picture of elephants in very, very 1960s-style artwork on the walls of my room when I was growing up. I’m sure it has something to do with it!”
It’s the whimsy and freedom of expression and vibrancy of colour that draws Sarah to abstracts. Her art is unique in its style, but looking at it one can’t help but recognize a certain homage to abstract painters of the past, such as Picasso and painters that are more modern. One of her influences is Peter Max, an abstract artist known in the 1960s for his work with the psychedelic movement in graphic design that influenced advertising in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “I love him. When I was 11, he was at an artist book signing in New Orleans. My mom walked up and introduced me and he signed our book!”
While she normally shies away from commission work, this year’s official poster for the Junior League of Greater Covington’s Harvest Cup Polo Classic practically fell into her lap. Some time ago, Sarah did a poster for the Covington Art Association that intrigued the members of the Junior League. They approached Sarah’s mother, who was the association’s president at the time, about contacting Sarah to do a painting for the Junior League’s then-upcoming cookbook, “Roux To Do,” which she agreed to do.
The book sold over 20,000 copies. The success of the cookbook encouraged the League to approach Sarah about doing the 2007 Harvest Cup poster. She accepted the commission with no specific requirements from the League on the subject matter other than to paint the “big picture” and capture the spirit of their #1 charity fundraising event.
“I’ve never painted a horse before in my life. So I definitely had to do some studying on that,” Sarah says of the painting. “I thought about painting the backs of women in big hats with the horses lined up,” but nixed that in favor of trying to capture the energy and momentum of the horse and horseman. Painting a sports shot is not an opportunity she anticipates doing very often, so the Harvest Cup poster was a welcome chance to expand her art. It allowed her to advance her skills and capture the bridled energy and the power in motion of the horse on canvas. Sarah says it was a satisfying challenge to create the poster art. Given free reign, so to speak, over the subject and style, the commission was not at all like ‘painting inside the lines,’ as other commission work of this type might constrain her to do. “I’ve absolutely never painted like this before,” Sarah gushes. “It’s given me great practice, too, studying both motion and animal movements.”
Sarah hopes that through her gallery, her weekly radio program and the exposure from high profile work such as the Harvest Cup poster she will be able to make her dream of bringing art to the public a “Dunn deal.” “I don’t want people to only appreciate the art I put out there. I want to inspire people to create it. Art is within everyone. The abstract style is so loose; an abstract painting is a symbol expressing your thoughts and situations of your reality.”
Sarah’s art and art instruction are available at Sarah Dunn Art, 609 E. Boston Street in Covington. (985) 249-5062 or www.sarahdunnart.com.
