Sarah Fripon

Lives and works in Vienna, Austria

Artist statement

My paintings begin with things that are easy to overlook. Images picked up while moving through the city, while shopping, while spending time in other people’s homes. A reflection on a kitchen tool, a catalog page from the nineties, a stock photograph trying to look convincing. These images stay with me. I save them on my phone and over time they form a personal archive of everyday visual noise. They matter because they are constant, and because they quietly shape how the present looks. Lately I have been thinking a lot about how different times seem to overlap. With digitised archives and online libraries, it feels possible to move between the 1890s, the 1950s, the 2000s and today in just a few clicks. These eras start to exist next to each other rather than in sequence. I bring this into the work by letting images, references and moods from different periods sit together. This feels close to how time and memory are experienced now, as layers that accumulate rather than unfold cleanly. Contemporary tools make this kind of blending almost unavoidable. In the studio, these fragments are rearranged and painted until they settle into place. Some are transformed heavily, others remain close to their source. The process becomes a way of thinking through the structures that organize daily life. Comfort food, physical money, hygiene routines, beauty ideals. These small systems carry a quiet authority. The paintings follow loose chains of association, allowing one thought to slip...

Artwork