VALS: Sarah Boris – Multi-practice: a journey in art & design

Sarah Boris is an artist and designer who’s practice encompasses book making, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, painting and design. She started out working as graphic designer for some of the biggest cultural institutions before setting up her own studio to focus on her art practice. Her work explores various topics and forms, from symbols to climate change and language. Her projects often emerge from lived experiences or are connected to specific contexts. After being a graphic designer and art director for several arts organisations and the publisher Phaidon, she set up her own practice in 2015 with the aim to focus on her art practice. Her published books include Rainbow (2022/3), Global Warming Anyone? (2019), Le Théâtre Graphique (2015/ 2016/2023) and After the Rain (2024) most of which are part of artists’ book collections. After the Rain is her latest book which is entirely screenprinted and echoes the sense of play present in some of her latest bodies of work. Her public art commission, The Heart Bench series (2021), demonstrates how she transforms a universal symbol into a functional sculpture. One of her most iconic artworks is the Fragile UK Flag (2015), where she created the Union Jack using fragile tape and blue paper. Her work has been exhibited at the Design Museum in London and is part of collections at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the New York Centre for Book Arts, FRAC Normandie, MAK Vienna, artothèque Bel Ordinaire, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland. The talk will present her practice from working in house to founding her own studio.

Sarah Boris Instagram

Books of interest:
Le Theatre Graphique
Rainbow 1
Rainbow 2
After the Rain