While Sarah Davidson often draws directly from ‘nature’, their work diffracts distinctions between embodied self and other through a queer ecological lens: critters and space collapse in upon one another, suggesting a permeable web. Meshes of hatching reveal glimpses into a jumble of images, and the works weave together observational drawing and an abstract vocabulary of shapes to evoke bodies and suggest an ambiguous interiority. Looking and other forms of sensing disintegrate into each other, revealing something porous, strange and seductive.

The recent works in this exhibition weave together the intricate linework of scientific illustration and uncanny biomorphic form. Hovering between abstraction and figuration, many of the paintings seem caught in the process of transformation; goopy oil stick melts into thinly rendered linework, and flora and fauna waver in and out of perception. Cut with a jigsaw, the edges of the panels waver slightly, like leaves or sheets of paper, plein air studies with a life of their own.

Of their work, Sarah writes:

‘For me, abstraction and figuration are equally important, and in oscillating between these modes, I like to suggest that the distinction is actually quite porous. I love the idea of depicting ‘butterflies’ that can’t fly, suggesting wings caught up in the systems around them or transforming into something else entirely.

My interest in ‘nature’ as a subject comes from my time spent working as a guide. For 10 years, I made a living guiding expeditions for an outdoor school, teaching classes which ranged from identifying species to the history of ‘wilderness’ in North America. The more I learned about these topics, the more critical I became. ‘Nature’, I realized, has often been weaponized to delineate the bounds of heteronormative propriety, erase Indigenous nations, and otherwise police the boundaries of the dominant culture. While I often drew directly from observation in the ‘wilderness’, I became increasingly aware that this was a fraught gesture, one which begs the question: who is seeing who, and how?

Since science and natural history especially are so tied to observation I began to wonder what other worlds could be suggested through this mode. I started to make work which combined observational drawing with biomorphic abstraction, weaving together the kind of illustration most familiar from natural history guides, and bodily shapes that hover on the edge of the appealing and the grotesque.

During the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, I developed a series of drawings which all featured butterflies or moths (or parts of their wings), and eyes which appeared to look back at the viewer. These have since evolved into oil paintings, and I look at them all as a reflection of my own experience: during the past four years, my gender identity has been in flux and my obsession with butterflies and moths (particularly the phase of their life cycles called ‘diapause’, when they transform) reflects coming to terms with my own trans non-binary identity, transitioning, and the destabilizing experience of having to rethink much of how I define and experience the world. I have a number of questions, as I develop my ongoing project: how does biomorphism relate to queerness, transness, and painting? How can elements of body horror in my work unsettle ways of looking at them? Is there such a thing as queer abstraction, or a queer art which eschews human representation?’

SARAH DAVIDSON (b. 1989) is originally from Canada, where they pursued their art education, at Emily Carr University (BFA, Visual Art, 2015) and the University of Guelph (MFA, Visual Art, 2019). From 2011-2021, they worked as a hiking and climbing guide, spending months of each year in remote locations in Canada, the United States and Scandinavia. They relocated to New York in 2022, and currently live and work in Brooklyn. They have exhibited their work throughout Canada and the United States, including solo exhibitions at NARS Foundation, Brooklyn (2023), Wil Aballe Art Projects, Vancouver (2022), Feuilleton, Los Angeles (2021), and Erin Stump Projects, Toronto (2019). Their two person booth at NADA (presented by Wil Aballe Art Projects alongside Daniel Giordano) was named one of the ‘Best Booths of NADA’ by ARTnews in 2023, and their work has been covered by Mousse Magazine, Canadian Art, Fukt Magazine, and more. Their upcoming projects include curating a group exhibition at Springs Projects (New York, Spring 2025), which considers queer and trans ecologies and includes artists from New York, Baltimore, Montreal, Vancouver, and Rotterdam (NL).