Small worlds are built and then disturbed.
The paintings take the form of small theatres: constructed environments where architecture and figures are brought together and held in tension. They draw on the artificial worlds of video games, digital imagery, cinema, theatre, architecture, spaces that are carefully composed, yet always contain the possibility of disruption. Within these pictorial arenas, forces become visible: desire, control, gravity, mass, density, attraction and resistance. Figures occupy spaces that seem familiar but never entirely stable. Something appears to have happened, or might happen, but the image remains suspended between action and stillness. The paintings are constructed piece by piece, moving between figures, architectural forms, surfaces and empty space. Working on unstretched canvas allows the image to remain closer to a fragment of an environment than a fixed window onto the world. There is a constant movement between control and intuition: elements are positioned, disrupted, removed and reconfigured until the scene begins to acquire its own tension. I am interested in the way an image can hold several moments at once: what is happening, what has already happened, and what might happen next. A figure can seem caught between memory and anticipation; a space can feel both encountered and imagined. What is visible is only one state of the image, surrounded by latent possibilities, memories and imagined extensions. The present becomes charged with other versions of itself, suggesting worlds beyond the limits of the picture. Rather than telling a story, the paintings hold a situation open. Figures, structures and forces remain caught in a continuous present, where nothing quite resolves. The aim is to create a sense of recognition mixed with estrangement: the feeling of encountering a world that seems familiar, yet cannot quite be located.
Sarah Gilbert (born in Le Mans, France) lives and works in London.
She holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins, London (2010), and a DNSEP from the École des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, France (2004). In 2018, she was a resident at the Azimvt Ashram in Haridwar, India and was nominated for Mishcon de Reya and Cassart art prize (2010).
Recent exhibitions include Persona at Crypt Gallery, London (2026); Lines of Flight at Bleur Gallery, London (2026); the Annual Open at Southwark Park Galleries, London (2025); and Worlds and Scenes at Rabbet Gallery, London (2025). Previous exhibitions and collaborations include participation in the Galeristes art fair, Le Carreau du Temple, Paris (2019), represented by Gallery A1043; Tangent at Stone Space, London (2019); Cell Block in Hackney Wick, London (2019); Foolish Fire at Islington Arts Factory, London (2019); Slightly Seared on the Reality Grill at Unit 5 Gallery, London (2018); and DGTL Ldn at Unit 5 Gallery, London (2017).