Sara Pedigo grew up in the American South. She received her MFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2007. She is currently a Professor at Flagler College located in Saint Augustine, Florida, her undergraduate alma mater.

Pedigo has exhibited nationally, with solo exhibitions at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Western Illinois University, Furman University, College of Southern Nevada, Barton College and Arts on Douglas, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and Wynn Bone Gallery in Annapolis, Maryland. Her numerous group exhibitions include Drawing Discourse at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and Root to Bloom at Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA.

Additionally, her paintings were featured in the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2020 and at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC in 2006. Pedigo was honored with a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant in 2006 and a Community Foundation of Northeast Florida Grant in 2016. Her artwork has been the cover art for the following publications: Ivory Tower: A journal of poetry published by the University of Delhi, Play Button: Poems by Liz Robbins published by Cider Press Review, and Minetta Review: a literary and arts publication at New York University.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My artistic practice focuses on a search for contentment and pleasure in undramatic everyday surroundings, emanating from a desire to generate gratitude for living. Author Sir Hustvedt wrote, “I love painting because in its immutable stillness it seems to exist outside of time in a way no other art can. The longer I live the more I would like to put the world in suspension and grip the present before it’s eaten by the next second and becomes the past.”

Collectively, my artworks serve as a testament to being both mentally and physically present in the world; a direct consequence of recognizing the perplexing paradigm known as death. My revelation of life’s fragility has transformed my worldview and manifested in a practice of continually seeking gratification through the act of looking. Author Alain de Botton succinctly says, “It is in a dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value.”

For me, this value is often translated through perceiving and recording transitive states of light. Light mediates our perception of the world and is highly influential in my life and to each of my artworks. Light is the singular requirement for all life and is the source of our perceived experience. Light is the arbiter of color, form, space, and ultimately visual memories.