Sarah Drinan

Sarah Drinan (b. 1994, Australia) is a figurative painter whose work explores the complexities of the body — its vulnerability, desires, unease, resistance, and messiness. Drawing on her background in mental health occupational therapy and the rich history of figurative painting, Drinan explores the body as a site of physical and emotional experience, shaped by narratives, systems, and environments.

Her fleshy compositions draw from a diverse image bank, including sketches, personal snapshots, internet archives, historical figurative art, digital media and modelling apps. These figures often appear fluid and shifting, evoking a state of transcendence — bodies in flux, oscillating between the human and mythical. Drinan’s work gestures toward a body rooted in sensation and transformation, reflecting on the fluidity of identity and the tension between constraint and liberation, the known and the unknown.

Drinan was selected as a finalist for the 2023 Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Australia’s most generous prize for artists under 40, and as a two-time finalist for the Brett Whitley Travelling Art Scholarship in 2022 and 2021. In 2022, she was awarded the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship Residency at Shark Island Kangaroo Valley. Her work is held in private and public collections, including Artbank, Australia.