gertrude.com/artists/sarah-jane-hender work also available on Gertrude
‘Sarah Jane Hender’s work is uniquely compelling and unsettling. Her images call out to the viewer, pulling you in with a raw emotional intensity that feels both confrontational and tender. An artist to watch. Meryl Yankelson, Curator, collector and Gallerist
Sarah Jane Hender is a Dorset-born multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes painting, sculpture, video and collage, exploring themes of womanhood, identity, and societal perceptions of the body.
Graduated with a BA (Hons) from the Surrey Institute of Art in 2000, followed by a Postgraduate Diploma at Chelsea College of Art in 2012. Later, she completed her MA in Fine Art Digital at Central Saint Martins in 2024, where her exploration of painting and video earned her the Cass Art CSM Painting Prize. Since then, she has been long-listed for the John Moores Prize in 2025 and the CBP painting prize.
Recent group exhibitions include 'You're Not Alone', Women in Art 2025, showing at Silesian Museum, Poland and B.A.D in Dorset. She is currently working towards a solo show in London, ready for 2027.‘
Quoted by writer Sonia Boué on discussing her painting You're Not Alone, ‘Sarah Jane Hender, in which a third eye near the collarbone resembles a wound. A quotidian phrase, thus, hints at deeper, perhaps, darker meanings’ Excerpt taken from the You're Not Alone catalogue, 2025.
A anonymous review from the show You're Not Alone at BEAF, in Dorset.
‘Sarah Jane Hender, her work instantly engaged me. I really like how she has shown woman with strong, defined structures. The postures communicate confidence and eye catching presence. Plus the artist reminds me of the work of Lucien Freud and his direct realism which feels to embrace the features we are born with even if they don’t align with societal beauty standards. This especially contrasts with society billboards of models and supermodels. This overall subjects in oil on canvas feel human and relatable for me even if I’m a male not a female it is universal, rather than an unreachable perfect image. By creating work like that she sends a message of acceptance with one self to the Boscombe community’.
Hender mines imagery from popular culture to find her source material: music videos and glossy magazines that glorify perfect bodies. In her paintings, Hender hacks away at the veneer of the idealised, retouched form as depicted in her mediated source imagery. She depicts skin as rough and drawn, limbs are elongated or removed, and certain features enlarged or reduced. Through this process of transfiguration, Hender strips away layers to reveal something more, something of the self where loss, sorrow and transgression is no longer concealed. Her paintings are often reminiscent of her youth and imbued with feelings of inadequacy and objectification.
Sarah Jane was born and currently lives in Dorset, she spent many years in London where she was part of an art collective that converted disused buildings into art studios and exhibition spaces. Whilst in London, she explored lo-fi wearable fashion and public performative interventions, making handmade objects which she presented in public locations. Her practice spans over twenty years with the past years as a full-time parent and educator.
At the core, her work has been driven by experimentation within a wide breadth of materials that include hand-sewn garments, clay-clad figurative soft sculptures and found objects. Since her MA at Central St Martins, she has focussed her practice on painting and video.
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Publications
You’re Not Alone is a title borrowed from the lead poster image; a brooding androgynous portrait by the artist Sarah Jane Hender, in which a third eye near the collarbone resembles a wound. A quotidian phrase, thus, hints at deeper, perhaps, darker meanings, certainly, that art is a medium for the inner eye. Quote by Sonia Boué.
Boué is also a writer, an experienced guest lecturer and a consultant. She has worked with the Plus Tate Network, the Tate disAbility Network, the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths College, the City Lit/National Gallery, the Royal Society of Sculptors, the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A, and the Wellcome Collection. She is currently an A-N Artist Board Member and NDACA acquisitions committee member.
muzeumslaskie.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/You-are-not-alone_catalogue.pdf
muzeumslaskie.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Nie-jestes-sama_katalog-wystawy.pdf
ualshowcase.arts.ac.uk/collection/central-saint-martins-seeing-the-unseen
www.linkedin.com/pulse/balancing-act-juggling-caring-responsibilities-3rzhc/?trackingId=OmWoZVUlIBd1yEsPcywvPg%3D%3D
www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/postgraduate-study/postgraduate-community/stories/post-grad-portraits-sarah-jane-hender
