In today’s article, I’ll be looking at a unique and fascinating interdisciplinary artist called Sara Cwynar, whose works deal with themes of consumerism, feminism, technology, society, and advertising. Her artistry spans various mediums, including photography, collage, installations, video essays, films, and even book-making, making her one of New York’s most prominent multimedia artists.
Currently, her works can be found in a myriad of galleries and museums all over the globe, such as the Dallas Museum of Art, Foam Fotagrafie museum in Amsterdam, Guggenheim Museum in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Frankfurt Soho Hause, amongst many others.
In this article, rather than looking at just the work of this artist, which has been covered by art journalists numerous times, I’d like to look deeper into her unique creative process in an attempt to understand the mind behind these artworks. To start, I’ll first look at Cwynar’s background, key milestones, and unique artistic style. From there, I’ll dive into her inspirations, techniques, and how she approaches making her artwork, amongst other things. Towards the end, I’ll wrap things up by looking at her perspective on the role of art in today’s society and her advice for aspiring artists.
With this in mind, let’s dive deep into the beautiful mind of Sara Cwynar.
Artist Background
Sara Cwynar was born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1985 and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her path to becoming an artist wasn’t set in stone. In fact, Cwynar first started studying English Literature at the University of British Columbia. However, she dropped out soon after realizing it wasn’t the best course for her.
In 2010, she earned a degree in Design at York University in Toronto; later, in 2016, she earned an MFA in Photography from Yale University. Her first public show was Flat Death, held at Foxy Production in New York and also featured in MoMA PS1. The show explored how images and objects shift in meaning and cultural value over time, and her unique approach to viewing the subject brought her many new fans.
A year later, she presented a new project titled ‘Presidential Index,’. Here, she explored consumerism themes by photographing past presidents’ headless busts. In 2016, 2017, and 2018, she released her most well-known work, a trilogy of films called Soft Film, Rose Gold, and Red Film, which examined the intersections of consumer culture, beauty, and value through the lens of objects and colours. These works are now compiled in her book, Glass Life (2021), which has been published by the Aperture Foundation.
Now, Cwynar’s latest creation is another video essay called ‘Baby Blue Benzo’, where again she explores themes of luxury, consumerism, and beauty, using the Mercedez-Benz car as its focal point.
The Creative Process
Let’s look closely at where Sara Cwynar draws her inspiration from, the techniques the artist uses, and how she creates a piece, amongst other subjects.
Inspiration and Ideas
Cwynar draws inspiration from many different sources, such as, in her words, ‘food photography, discarded commercial still lives, people’s vacation snapshots, amateur nudes, and stock images’. In her brainstorming phase, she takes inspiration from old studio photos, ads, and magazines and often uses those items to bring forward the themes she wants to explore. This means that rather than waiting for inspiration to hit, as many artists do, she prefers looking at her archive of footage and images and seeing what ideas come up from looking at them.
In many interviews, Cwynar explains how she’s fascinated by how quickly trends change, such as how clothes that were very stylish in a specific period look so out of place and strange when placed in another timeline. That being said, she’s also very interested in the hyper-real photography of our time, especially with images that are super polished and retouched. What seems to inspire her the most is how these ads shape personal and collective ideals and how objects once desired by most people lose their value over time. In her work, she tries to give these objects new meaning so that viewers can rethink how they see them.
She explains, ‘I like the idea of (…) using objects that everyone has filling their junk drawers—lost or valueless objects—and presenting them as having artistic value.’ Indeed, her unique conceptual approach to photography and film allows her to explore her deep fascination with images, in a way that not many artists have done before.
Techniques and Mediums
As mentioned, Cwynar works across photography, film, collage, video, performance, and installations, so her techniques and mediums are often changing. For instance, in her video essay trilogy (Soft Film, Rose Gold, Red Film), she combines 16mm film with digital video to evoke a sense of nostalgia. At the same time, she contrasts this feeling with our contemporary reality of infinite possibilities and choices, creating an interesting interplay between the past and present.
On the other hand, in Doll Index, the idea for this project came about after Cwynar looked at a series of images she found in the 1950s Met Museum of Dolls. Using collage, Cwynar reimagines these vintage dolls by combining them with photographs of models, products, and beauty items, among other things, crafting what she calls a ‘new still life’. Through this process, she invites her audience to reflect on cultural shifts and evolving ideals of femininity.
Creating a Piece
Cwynar’s creative approach varies by medium. However, the starting point is always research. Indeed, she spends many hours researching different texts from philosophers and writers who are interested in the same themes that she is. This way, she can back up her work and ideas even further.
Together with her research, when creating a piece, Cwynar often goes on eBay and sources objects that interest her. At the same time, she also goes over her archive of footage, images, and objects that she’s collected along the way. In an interview, she describes how she can also have stuff lying around her studios for years, and one day, she’ll get the inspiration to do something with them. For example, in her video essays, she carefully sets up the objects and backgrounds. Once the set-up is ready, she photographs it and videos it multiple times, re-photographing the initial image to add a sense of distortion and layering.
Like any great artist, Cwynar understands that critique is an important part of her growth, but she doesn’t let it influence her work too much. In an interview, she remarks how sometimes she sees her audience as the kindest and most receptive sort of people, but this can sometimes switch to them being evil, critical, and hard to please. She now tries not to overthink what the audience might want.
That being said, she understands that the feedback she gets from her fans has allowed her to solidify her work as an artist. For example, she has been criticized for making art with an outdated aesthetic, but she makes sure to connect this to the present world, making the work more relevant to her viewers.
Like any artist, she explains that she sometimes faces some blocks when working. For example, as mentioned, she loves the process of thinking about photos and how they are composed. Still, she struggles with taking the images because she feels there is always something better she can do. However, she’s found a way to work around this and now takes photos late at night as it helps her not overthink the whole process too much.
Personal Insights
When it comes to finding her voice, Cwynar admits that she initially struggled to develop her style. Early in her career, her work resembled that of another legendary artist, Cindy Sherman, whom Cwynar greatly admired. Over time, though, and after many failed artworks, she found her identity as an artist, and she affirms that this is something that now no one can take away from her.
Cwynar believes her role in art is to make the time we live in more understandable. She also hopes that in the future, people can look at her art and understand what the people of our generation were feeling and experiencing at the time. Drawing from her background as a competitive figure skater—where she trained six hours a day—Cwynar approached the art world with the same discipline and embraced failure as an essential part of growth.
She encourages young artists to remain determined in their path and to stop at nothing to get it. Indeed, she remarks that her relentless drive at her school made her seem extreme to her peers, but she didn’t let it stop her. She also reminds her readers that compared to the past, there is much more possibility for artists to express themselves than before, making it a great time to share your art. Above all, she encourages artists not to fear the idea of failing and to trust that it will somehow all come together in the end.
Conclusion
Drawing inspiration from everyday objects, vintage advertisements, forgotten imagery, and popular cultural icons, Sara Cwynar’s technique of utilizing different sources to bring forward her ideas on beauty, society, and consumerism is simply unparalleled. I greatly appreciate how transparent Cwynar is about her inspirations and the processes she engages in to bring forth her work. Both young and seasoned artists can learn a lot by reading how different artists approach their projects. It’s also a wonderful way to develop a deeper appreciation for her art.
I encourage all our readers to explore this artist’s fascinating work, which has much to say about our current society. You can keep up to date with this artist by following her on social media, where she keeps her fans updated about her future projects.