Sara Pope

DUE TO RECENT PUBLICITY WITH THE POPE AND THE VATICAN, THE BBC AND SKY NEWS IT IS RECOMMENDED YOU CONTACT THE GALLERY PRIOR TO PLACING ANY SARA POPE’S PRINTS TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT. STOCKS ARE NOW VERY LOW!
Born in Stoke-On-Trent, Sara Pope left school to study a degree in mathematics. However, she soon realised that she couldn’t ignore her creative side, and after completing her degree, began her career working in magazines as designer and art director, working for companies such as Hachette Filipache and Natmags.

Sara has always been interested in vintage shoes and started customising and selling vintage shoes while living in Spain. Organising champagne/shoe parties, gaining press in The Independent. This led to her being approached by avant garde fashion designer Robert Cary Williams, to design a collection of shoes for his London Fashion week show – press: ID magazine. This was a great success, and Sara followed this by studying a one year footwear Diploma at the London College of Fashion to learn the technical aspects of shoemaking. She has since worked as a shoe designer for many high end brands, including Paul Smith, Lacoste, as well as freelance catwalk projects for brands such as Jasmine Di Milo, and consultancy work for Jemima Vine (brand championed by Pippa Middleton).

Alongside her commercial work, Sara has spent time developing her art. Working in oils and acrylic, she makes use of bold, attractive colours with high shine gloss. Taking much inspiration from her commercial experience; beauty, consumerism and the media. These are now major themes in Sara Pope’s art. Her painting style imitates the slickness of advertising, whilst provocatively subverting its themes. She works in series or ‘collections’, painting a body of work with common stylistic elements and colour palette, as with seasonal collections in fashion.

Sara Pope is best known for her seductive paintings and limited edition prints of big, bold and beautiful Celebrity Lips. They pack a thought-provoking pop art punch. Beneath their glamorous gloss there is a hint of disintegration, raising questions about the ideals of beauty and the transience of celebrity culture. Lips have a fascinating attraction for Sara, sexy and seductive, symbols of femininity, yet communicators of language. ‘Our lips can communicate a multitude of emotions, and are integral to us reading a face. Yet when colour is applied to these lips, they become powerful, sexual symbols’.

Sara’s work is rapidly gaining attention, and she currently exhibits with several galleries, including WorkHouse Modern, Harrogate ; Lawrence Alkin, London; Jealous Gallery, London and Artrepublic, Brighton and 166a Arte, Florence – Italy. She had her first solo show ‘Slick’ this year at Workhouse Modern in Harrogate, her first international show in Florence, and also an original portrait of Pope Francis accepted into the Vatican Collection.

Future projects include, a joint show with scupltor Sam Shendi, there are talks going on at the moment for shows in New York and Tokyo, plus major beauty brand Bare Minerals is in discussions with Sara for a project for 2015.