Sarah Isabelle Tan is an artist and researcher based between London and Singapore. Her practice unfolds through a post-medium approach that is grounded by sensitivity to material behaviour and processes of making as embodied gestures of attention. Rather than seeking fixed forms or representations, she remains attuned to what emerges gradually. She approaches the notion of the image not as something depicted or predefined, but a condition that arises through relation between hand, surface and time. The work is felt rather than constructed, calibrated in response to the material’s own tendencies and limits. Writing accompanies making within her practice, both forming addresses as gestures of reaching and attending to remains beyond reach. Working at thresholds between proximity and distance, visibility and disappearance, presence and withdrawal, her practice becomes a way of sustaining relation through care, restraint, and an ethics of remaining-with what slips, withdraws and lingers.
Sarah is currently pursuing her Master of Research at the Royal College of Art. She graduated from the University of the Arts, London College of Communication in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts, First Class Honours in Photography. Her work has been exhibited in London and Singapore and published in The British Journal of Photography. She was a recipient of the Objectifs Centre Documentary Award 2020 and a still image category finalist of the inaugural Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize 2021. Her works were also presented at S.E.A Focus 2022 with Sullivan+Strumpf. Prior to starting her Masters, she was a lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore.