Sara Risley

Born and raised in Elgin, Illinois, Sara Risley is a working artist living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She studied photography at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas followed by a 27-year career as a portrait photographer in Chicago, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. Since retiring, she works full-time at her art. She is greatly influenced by the Abstract Expressionists as is evident in both her abstract photography and her paintings. She has shown in juried shows and galleries in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Florida, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri and her work is in private collections throughout the US. She is an avid volunteer at Literacy Services of Wisconsin where she tutors adults working toward their GEDs and a major fan of theater.

The Abstract Expressionists combined movement and emotional intensity to create work that looked like nothing else before it. It is the art movement that most influences my work from my abstract photographic pieces to my acrylic and alcohol ink paintings to my collage work. I approach a bare canvas with shapes and colors, lines and textures whether working with digital images in Photoshop or with materials at hand in the studio. I layer, add, subtract until I know it is done. My collage materials include pieces of all three of those media. I also use detritus, found paper, old fabric, paint, or whatever the image cries out for. I most often use bright, intense colors, and the final results are a mirror to my mood.

WI