“Gore Range” 50x150” Original Painting commissioned by Vail Health, Vail, CO
SARAH WINKLER
studio : Morrison, Colorado
Sarah Winkler’s work explores geological aspects of landscape formation. Combining Studio Art, Earth Science, and Creative Writing during her studies at William Paterson University, Winkler began her career as a collage artist and award winning print media graphic designer in Virginia and Los Angeles. Her fine art work draws inspiration from the diverse geological landscapes she has encountered throughout her life. Born in Manchester, UK, Sarah has lived abroad for most of her life, due to her father’s career in aviation, in places ranging from Malawi, Africa to Brunei, Borneo, to the dramatic coastlines of Big Sur, California to the majestic Rocky Mountains. Winkler now resides in Colorado’s Front Range with her husband and two pugs. Her custom built painting studio sits at an elevation of 9,000 feet on their mountain property with views of 14-ers and the city lights of Denver. When not painting, she enjoys, hiking, biking, paddling, knitting wooly jumpers and van life adventure travels throughout the USA and Canada.
Winkler’s art is represented in galleries in the US and Canada, and has been exhibited since 2007 in museums, galleries and Art Fairs such as Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, Bakersfield Museum of Art in California, Cornell Art Museum in FL, the Colorado Governor's Mansion in Denver, Art Aspen, Jackson Hole Art Fair, and the LA Art Show. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg, KS. Her work has been placed in over 100 prominent US and international collections, from Stanford Healthcare, CA, Maker’s Mark Whisky in Kentucky, to Vail Health in Colorado and Mountain Shadows Resort in Paradise Valley, Arizona in addition to private collections internationally. Winkler is a participating artist in the US Department of State’s Art in Embassies program, where she has been featured at the American Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. She was named one of the top ‘Women Painters on the Rise’ by Artsy Inc. and was curated into their 2022 digital billboard campaign 'Scenes of Summer' exhibition in New York City. Her work has been featured in Scientific American, Times UK, Vail Valley, Mountain Living, Cowboys & Indians Magazine, American Art Collector, New American Paintings and in the documentary, 'Moment' by Making Art Films.
Winkler's approach fundamentally departs from traditional landscape painting by treating the canvas as a geological palimpsest rather than a visual record—she reenacts erosion and formation through her painting process itself, whereas conventional landscape techniques focus on capturing scenic appearance and atmospheric perspective. Winkler is interested in ‘Why’ and ‘How’ a landscape looks the way it does.
Patterns of Nature
There are a set of basic patterns in nature that repeat. Organic patterns like striations, graining, branching and waves. They are nature’s basic design and at the core of Earth’s creation. I incorporate nature’s patterns into my compositions. Their surface patterns tell a geological story of formation. A story of change, chance and adaptation. It’s a look at the very fabric of design and the interconnectedness of all life on Earth through the eons. A process that reflects in the nature of making art.
Artistic Process
My art practice centers on exploring geological formations and the dynamic landscapes of the American West to the Pacific Coast. I reenact geological forces through embedded materials (crushed minerals) and mark-making. By embedding minerals directly into my compositions, I deliberately collapse the boundary between representation and material reality, making the geological content inseparable from the visual form itself.
Reflecting & Layers
My work is recognizable for its ‘folded earth, open sky’ mirror effect that imagines the hidden subsurface geology below the ground that creates the reality above a horizon line. Flattened stratification shows all elements in all detail, with depth created through scale of shape and color values rather than vanishing-point recession, allowing viewers to see the full textural complexity at once.
Collage
Instead of drawing or Plein Aire renderings, I sketch in a collage format with prepared papers of my own design. Collage has an aesthetic of deconstruction and layered assembly whose visual outcomes serves as a metaphor for building stratified scenic landscapes. I develop my collage sketches into larger scaled acrylic paintings that retain their collage aesthetic and conceptual integrity.
Locations
Locations like Vail Mountain and Big Sur are not depicted with identical exactness instead I position the work in the abstract state between the physical world and the emotive experiences of place. Discovery and connection to the nature depicted remain open for the viewer’s senses.
My approach fundamentally departs from traditional landscape painting by treating the canvas as a geological palimpsest rather than a visual record— reenacting erosion and formation through the painting process itself, whereas conventional landscape techniques focus on capturing scenic appearance and atmospheric perspective that prioritize optical realism; I instead embed the story of geological formation into my materials and mark-making process. Rather than studying how light falls on a mountain, I study how forces sculpt it.
MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
2026 - The Big Pretty, Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, Lindsborg, KS (SOLO)
2011 - Golden Contours, San Luis Obispo Art Museum, San Luis Obispo, CA (SOLO)
2008 - Small Works, Bakersfield Museum of Art (Group)
2007 - Natl. Collage Society, Cornell Museum, Dell Ray Beach, FL (Group)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (INTERNATIONAL)
*2019-2023 - Art in Embassies. US Dept. of State. US Ambassador’s Residence, US Embassy, Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (GALLERY)
2026 - Folded Earth, Open Sky, Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
2026 - Off Piste, Gallery MAR, Park City, UT
2025 - Sea to Sky - Whistler Contemporary Gallery, Whistler, BC
*2025 - Desert Modern - Vail International Gallery, Vail, CO
2025 - River Stones - Visions West Contemporary, Livingston, MT
2023 - Edge of The Wild, Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, WA
*2023 - Peak Perspective, Vail International Gallery, Vail, CO
2022 - Scenes of Summer, ARTSY, New York, NY
2022 - Uplifted, Gallery MAR, Park City, UT
2022 - Chasing Starlight, Eclipses & Rainbows, Visions West Contemporary, Denver, CO
2022 - Montana Landscape, Visions West Contemporary, Bozeman, MT
*2022 - Heart of The Mountain, Vail International Gallery, Vail, CO
2021 - Mountain Glow, Gallery MAR, Park City, UT
2021 - Dreams About The West, Owen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2020 - All Mountain, Gallery MAR, Park City, UT
2020 - Land of the Glacier, Visions West Contemporary, Denver, CO
2020 - Reflections in Winter, MiXX Atelier, Telluride, CO
2019 - Monumental Duality, K Contemporary, Denver, CO
2019 - Stratification: MiXX Atelier, Telluride, CO
2019 - Sedimentary, Foster / White Gallery, Seattle, WA
2018 - Exploration, A Survey of Recent Works, K Contemporary, CO
2018 - Luminous Mountainous, K Contemporary, Denver, CO
2017 - Altered Landscapes, Space Gallery, Denver, CO
2017 - Past / Present, Gallery MAR, Park City, UT
2016 - Abstracted Landscapes: Four World Views, Space Gallery, Denver
2016 - Formations, Constructed Landscape, Helikon Gallery, Denver, CO
*Exhibition catalogue published.
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, Lindsborg, KS
CORPORATE COLLECTIONS (selected)
Makers Mark Distillery, Louisville, KY • Stanford Children’s Hospital, Palo Alto, CA • San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA • Montefiore Einstein Medical Center, Bronx, NYC • Vail Health Hospital, Vail, CO • Royal Caribbean, Oslo, Norway and Barcelona, Spain • Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas, NV • Hilton West Palm Beach, FL • Deer Valley Resort, Park City, UT • Montage, Deer Valley, Park City, UT • One Empire Pass, Park City, UT• Mountain Shadows Resort, Paradise Valley, AZ • The Phoenician, Paradise Valley, AZ• Viceroy, Aspen, CO • The SLO Hotel, San Luis Obispo, CA • Marriott Paso Robles, CA • Ritz Carlton, Denver, CO • Lodge Tower, Vail Village, Vail, CO • Hotel Oberland, Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland • Amazon HQ, Bellingham, WA • Chevron HQ, San Ramon, CA• Albemarle Corporation, Kings Mountain, NC & Charlotte, NC• Catalyst HTI, Denver, CO • Newmont Mining Corp. Denver, CO • Morrison & Foerster Law Office, Denver, CO • Imagery Winery, Sonoma, CA •Justin Vineyards, Paso Robles, CA • Squaw Valley Resort, CA