Originally motivated to express the simplicity and fullness of her childhood landscape in New England, Sarah Bird developed a reverence for the skills of the Hudson River School painters who brought oil painting into the outdoors, conveying unparalleled quantities of space on canvas. This admiration drew her to study traditional oil painting techniques at the Grand Central Academy, where for four years she studied full-time with contemporary realist painters, Jacob Collins, Edward Minoff, Joshua LaRock, Scaott Waddell, Tony Curanaj, and Colleen Barry. Now she is exploring the more intimate landscapes of still life, a poetic genre. She is influenced by realist painters like Claudio Bravo and Antonio Lopez Garcia, but even more affected by older artists like Adrian Coorte, Jan van Eyck, and Giovanni Bellini. Currently her work takes two general forms, either traditional, altaresque still lives of natural objects on cloth, or “foliage paintings”: wilder still lives of plants, leaves, and branches on a dark background, which she sees as a true crossover in genre between landscape and still life. Jessie Edwards Gallery shows her plain air island landscapes as well – painted while visiting her parents, who live on the island full time. Sarah currently lives in Sun Valley, Idaho with her husband the writer, Nick Neely.