Sarah Cowling: Painting with Paper Plus

By Beth Stewart

Sarah Cowling works in collage and in acrylic, and in some pieces, she combines the two.

Cowling describes the act of collage as “painting with paper”. It involves taking unrelated materials, usually paper-based, and combining them to create a new whole. Anything flat that can be glued down is fair game.

She uses premade Japanese and Thai papers, paper culled from old books and magazines, found paper, travel photos, and paper she herself has created.

She says inspiration often comes from a single piece of paper that has somehow caught her eye. Travel experiences often fuel her art as well.

Her self-created contributions are archival tissue papers or drawing papers that Cowling has painted using acrylics, brushes, and Gelli plates.

(Pictured: Sarah Cowling, “Behind St. Aidan’s”, collage with hand-painted papers, 12 by 12 inches.)

Much time is spent searching for or creating papers, often long before they are used. She describes the act of pulling together the pieces as meditative.

Cowling has an innate desire to create. She says, “It is something I need to do; a compulsion perhaps. I see a landscape or have a piece of paper that sparks an idea.”

She works both in-studio and on-location.

Cowling’s work ranges in size from 12-by-12 inches to 20-by-20 and up. While her collages offer bold chunks of colour that overlap and stack to create tactile line and form, her acrylic paintings combine bold brush strokes with intimate mark-making.

(Pictured: Sarah Cowling, “How Big is That Bull?”, collage with hand-painted papers, 8 by 10 inches.)

Cowling’s “Behind St. Aidan’s” shows the hard edges that appear on many of her collages. Yet another collage, “How Big is That Bull?” speaks to her love of storytelling. The latter is part of her ongoing exploration of family history in which she processes tales told by her mother and her aunt about family members.

In contrast, the acrylic on cradled board piece “Storm Coming” demonstrates her ability to suggest landforms and foliage as well as motion through bold brush work.

(Pictured: Sarah Cowling, “Storm Coming”, acrylic on cradled board, 20 by 20 inches.)

She credits this writer and artist, Jill Price, as being early providers of a gallery space for her (Axis Studios, Covent Garden Market). She thanks Al Stewart (Westland Gallery) for making space for local artists with the Miniature and Square Foot Shows. She is indebted to three local London art groups – the Brush and Palette Group, the Gallery Painting Group, and the Lambeth Art Association – for providing learning and exhibition opportunities as well as camaraderie and support. All of the aforementioned provided opportunities that are necessary for artists to succeed.

(Pictured: Sarah Cowling, “Utopia”, collage with hand-painted papers, 16 by 16 inches.)

Of late, Cowling has been involved in an ongoing project with the Kolaj Institute, creating collages based on folklore. To date, she has attended two folklore-focussed residencies with the Institute; one was in Scotland, and the other was in Knoxville, concentrating on this topic. She is grateful to Ric Kasini and others at the Kolaj Institute for their support.

(Pictured: Sarah Cowling, “Niagara Gorge”, collage with hand-painted papers, 40 by 60 inches.)

She currently has work in the Frankingstyle Gallery in St. Thomas and is looking forward to the 2026 London Artists’ Studio Tour, Friday, April 24 to Sunday, April 26. Cowling is #16 on the map at 180 Timber Drive. For more information, visit: https://londonstudiotour.ca/