Sarah Carpenter: artist sketchbooks and archival papers

Sarah Carpenter's sketchbooks, notes, and diaries reflecting her work as an artist and her process of working. These records were collected alongside a body of Sarah Carpenter's artworks, to reflect her process of working. Sarah draws on her experiences of mental illness to create her artwork, which usually takes the form of collage and hand drawn pattern making. This creative process deliberately mimics Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), a therapy Sarah undertook as part of her treatment for her eating disorder. Her work includes repetitive images, and deconstructs images and concepts through collage and patterns. Sarah’s work mainly focuses on eating disorders, the female body, the male gaze and mental health.

1990s-2010s

1 transfer box, 1 o/s box

Biographical information taken from Sarah Carpenter's website http://www.sarahcarpentercreative.co.uk/ [nominated for UK Web Archive, 2022]. "Sarah is an artist and designer with a background in dance choreography and theatre directing, with a Postgraduate Certificate in Design for Visual Communication from London College of Communication (part of University of the Arts London). Recent projects include a commission inspired by the British Museum and work exhibited at Saatchi Gallery. The work that she produces is mixed media. “My inspiration comes from my experience of mental illness. I liken my process to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): deconstructing, reconstructing and recycling ideas. ?My methodology reflects how I process information: reimagining objects, exploring all possibilities and making something new. Breaking things down, seeing them from a different perspective and in different contexts, helps me relate to and understand them better. Play and experimentation aid my learning. Twisting concepts and challenging perceptions of how we view the world, I deal with difficult emotions/ugly topics by attempting to unveil beauty. What constitutes beauty? Does my distortion make a subject more or less approachable/easier to digest and understand? Exploring all possible “solutions” to a brief, adapting methods, processes and outputs according to the people I work with, location and other factors such as the elements of chance that may arise and inform the work, is what I enjoy most.”

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.

Collected from Sarah Carpenter's home in Folkestone.