Sarah Peters

Sarah Peters serves as a Lecturer in the Painting and Drawing department at Purchase College's School of Art+Design. A New York-based sculptor, she is renowned for bronze and plaster works that reinterpret historical figurative traditions to explore power, authority, psychology, and gender through smooth, eyeless heads evoking contemplation and ecstasy.

Her educational background includes an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (2003), BFA from the University of Pennsylvania (1996), and Certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1995).

Peters' practice interrogates historical sculptural traditions through contemporary reinterpretation, drawing from Assyrian, Greco-Roman, and Egyptian iconography alongside modernists like Brâncuși. Termed "the pleasure of contemporary misinterpretation," her work features ambiguous expressions that create fluid meanings, as demonstrated in her 2020 duo exhibition with Celeste Rapone exploring sculpture-painting dialogues.

Though limited to one major publication, her 2014 essay "Tempests and Utopians" in Cultural Politics reflects her engagement with utopian theory and art-politics intersections, aligning with her sculptural critique of social structures.

Peters has received significant recognition including:

• National Academy Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2019)
• New York Foundation for the Arts Sculpture Fellowship (2011)
• Fine Arts Work Center Artist Residency (2009-2010)
• Sharpe-Wallentas Studio Grant (2007-2008)
• John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Residency (multiple)
• Pilchuck Glass School Emerging Artist Residency (1998)

At Purchase College, she mentors emerging artists while maintaining her Queens studio practice. Her residencies have provided critical development time for works exhibited internationally, from Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery in Luxembourg to NYU's Institute of Fine Arts.

Peters' studio in Queens serves as the production hub for her sculptures, with collaborative projects like the 2020 Celeste Rapone exhibition demonstrating her commitment to cross-disciplinary artistic dialogues that challenge traditional portraiture.