About

Hi!  I’m Sara Kate Hannon, an artist living in Austin, Texas.  I received my BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002.  

I am interested in the multi-dimensionality of our personalities. We are taught to present ourselves pleasantly, “I’m fine, thank you,” when our inner reality may be very different. We may be calmly going about our day, but with an inner dialog of doom and destruction rearing its head every now and then, or maybe even a voice of unbridled optimism pops up.

It’s with these inner voices that I am conversing with when I create. Voices that are integral to humans but society often eschews acknowledging. It seems that in art we are taught to strive to make a pretty image but I don’t want to make a pretty image. I want to exist, to see who I am.

While my drawing and paintings may seem intense at first glance, I am hoping the viewer will take a few minutes to get lost in the image and create a story only they can tell, but with which most of us can relate.

From 2022-2024 I have a painting in The People’s Gallery in Austin. In February of 2022, I had my first solo show at Mass Gallery in Austin. Other works have shown during East Austin Studio Tour at Cement Loop (2018) and Fort Tillery (2016), at Flitch (2017), and at Five x Seven at the Contemporary Austin (2012).

Bonus ABOUT: I am in a weekly writing group where we write from prompts. This prompt was based on Instructions to the Artist by Billy Collins:

I say to you, dear artist, there is no such thing as symmetry. There is no such thing as one look in the eye. There is no such thing as a single smirk. There is no such thing as ears that hear everything.

Instructions to you, dear artist, draw me with rolls of flesh and bags under my eyes.

Collage on an eye from my mother, the lips of my father, the look of “here we all are in this shit” of my brothers.

I want you to carefully pick out the shade of my hair. Use yellow crayons, but also blue and red. I’m pretty sure you will want to make my bangs green to vibe with the red of my face. The alizarin crimson of my forehead, nose and cheeks. The fuchsia of my lips.

My eyes will rest one on top of the other. Don’t forget my mother’s eye, clipped out of a photograph of her taken November 22, 1978. The day I was born.

The eyes, the ones you draw are blue. The whole eye, blue. The almond shape, the iris shape, the pupil shape. Blue. Smear downward like tears, like devastation. Then fill them in with grey to cover up what they have seen.

Dear artist you should know that I have a tattoo of a two faced girl on my arm. I want you to trace that and put it on the t-shirt I wear.

My skirt is a black upside-down triangle. My feet are black sock-like shoes.

In my arms I hold my cat. She has the look on her face that says, ‘I liked being held until one second ago.’

On the wall behind me is the illustration Rhonda did of me and Kris on the day we eloped. That will be photoshopped in.

There is a table behind me on which sits a Harvest Lumber Company hat and a pair of handlebars.

One of my eyes is looking at the door.