Fresh Paint

Sara Shamma

For Syrian artist Sara Shamma, the human figure has long been a source of inspiration. Working with three dance students from the Peckham School of Drama, Sara prepared for Hiding in Plain Sight by taking a series of photographs. “I never know what I want from a life model, so I just ask them to move randomly,” she explains. “I might ask them to make themselves very small or tell them to make their movements very large. For this painting, I asked them to imagine they were escaping or hiding. I didn’t know exactly what the outcome would be.”

Sara also avoids any form of planning when painting, preferring instead to see where each work might take her.