We are excited to introduce you to our new exhibiting artist at Brunswick, Sara Sulava!
Sara is a teacher and artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. She works predominantly with paper and found materials to create collages that inspire connection and play in our everyday world. This is her debut exhibition (yay!).
Image Description: Sara standing against the sunlight in front of MM Brunswick’s white brick storefront. She has golden shoulder-length hair and smiles at the camera. She is wearing a white top, blue corduroy button-down shirt, and blue skirt.
We caught up with Sara to chat about her creative process, sustainable artistic practices, and collaging.
MM: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practice?
S: I’m a teacher by trade, but I have always created, made, tinkered, since I was little. I go through phases [with form]: any crafty thing you can think of, I’ve tried. I’ve done weaving, sewing, painting, all sorts of stuff. But I always find myself coming back to paper and collage. It’s therapeutic for me.
MM: What’s your process like?
S: When I made these pieces for the shop, I used some Frankie magazines, and also bought somewhere between eighty to a hundred National Geographic magazines on Gumtree. I see imagery as a visual language, and piece the elements together to create a narrative, like you would with sentences in a story. So as I’m working through the magazines, the story or message in my works are developing in my brain.
I have an obsession with paper. The practice is] very tactile for me. I’ve been going to That Paper Joint on Sydney Road where they have workshops and self-guided sessions, and one of my pieces is dedicated to them. It’s like my dream space. Max and Zoe have shown me some different ways to go about collaging, so I’ve been playing around with new processes recently.
MM: Are you drawn to any particular themes and motifs, like nature and animals in this series from National Geographics?
S: I work based on a series of themes, so there’s the bird series, and some frog pieces. So yeah, I guess there’s a bit of connection to nature, because my eye is drawn to natural settings, but I like very geometric shapes as well.
MM: What’s the story of the pieces in this collection on show at Mutual Muse?
S: At Mutual Muse I’ve got the Snap Lockdown Series that came from being in and out [of lockdowns]—I remember things being so quiet, and missing the hustle and bustle of the city. It was those kinds of feelings. Then I’ve got the Dance Series, where I was thinking about connection through dance, and how that was not possible with social distancing, so that was about trying to recreate the sensation of being so close to somebody. And for the Home Series, I was playing around with proportion, space, and size. I was really enjoying cutting things out with the scalpel and being really meticulous. And then the Birds Series, like the fish in the sky… that’s just fun. Sometimes I like to make things just to make someone laugh.
“I’ve always collected things and held onto them, because I didn’t want them to go to waste. So I’m always reusing items I find and repurposing them into artwork in interesting and different ways.”
MM: I’m interested in how you see the relationship between your work and having a sustainable and environmentally low-impact artistic practice. Is that something you are particularly conscious of?
S: When I was in high school, I used to do very mixed media work. I guess why I go back to collage, found materials, cutting and pasting is because I grew up in a household where creative art wasn’t very supported. I didn’t have many art supplies growing up, so I would salvage things from around the house: birthday cards, Christmas cards, wrapping paper, paper clippings, and I would use them to make my art. It was very unintentionally sustainable, but it’s more to do with the fact that it comes from a process that I’ve been doing since I was little. I’ve always collected things and held onto them, because I didn’t want them to go to waste. So I’m always reusing items I find and repurposing them into artwork in interesting and different ways.
MM: Fashion question—Does your personal style reflect your art style at all?
S: I just go to what I like. So you know, I shop here [at Mutual Muse] so often. It’s really cool because [here] you’re always gonna find something you like. Places like this bring me a lot of joy, I love just seeing what I find, and trying to put something together from that. It’s a bit similar to the way I piece the collages together with elements I’m drawn to.
MM: And advice for a dilemma—what do you wear when it’s 40 degrees outside?
S: Usually I throw on a very loose-fitting dress. That would be my go-to because it’s so damn hot (laughs).
Check out more of Sara's work @saracutspaper on Instagram.
Visit That Paper Joint @thatpaperjoint or www.thatpaperjoint.com
