About

Since 2019 I have been working predominantly with aluminium cooking foil, acrylic paint, glue, and water to make Temporal Feral Forms. This began as a decision to limit my materials and see what sustained pocketed attention might produce.

Paint underpins everything. Its colour, viscosity, and capacity to hold and release time compel me. Water carries it, pools it, lets it dry at its own pace. Aluminium cooking foil is both substrate and helps make the painting as much as the paint and my actions.

Glue begins as a modest yet vital agent, laminating foil into surfaces to paint on. Over time, as works are handled, folded, stored, and reconfigured, bonded assembly gives way to contact-forged cohesion. I love how this happens poetically, and physically. The complex surface generated by the metamorphosis from 2D to 3D makes my mind and body fizz.

The works are portable and change each time they are installed, accumulating creases, tears, and holes as rich haptic archives of encounter. Instability is method, entropy is welcome. I’m very curious about passivity, acceptance, and engagement. About abdicating responsibility, letting things be, and knowing when to intervene. Exploring spectrums of consequences.

Abstraction is a perceptual opening, creating space for imagination and feeling. I’m into affect, collective dormant knowledge, and the enigmatic non-verbal language of art. When installed, Temporal Feral Forms resist total visibility, encouraging movement, shifting perspectives, and discoveries beyond my own intentions.

Bio

Sarah Ryder* (b. 1978, Wales) lives and works in Colwyn Bay, North Wales. MFA Painting, Slade School of Fine Art, London, 2008; BA in Fine Art Painting at the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, 2000. She is a Member of the Royal Society of Sculptors.

Recent solo exhibitions: MULTIFERALS, Exeter Phoenix Gallery, Devon, 2025; Imperceivable (until it isn’t). Isotop Fellesatelier, Bergen, 2024; Feet. Brain. Back Again. Galeri, Caernarfon, with second iteration in Cass Art Gallery, Manchester, both 2022. Recent group exhibitions: FLAT VOLUME, APT Gallery, London, 2025; All Kinds of Hands, The Storey, Lancaster, 2025; Caught In The Act, Royal Society of Sculptors, London, 2024; PLAY: The Movie!, Ty Pawb, Wrexham, 2023; Maquette, No Show Space, London, 2023.

Recipient of the overall award for Exeter Contemporary Open 2022.

*Exhibited as Sarah Bowker-Jones until 2020

Selected CV

Education

Solo Exhibitions

Group Exhibitions

Residencies

Awards

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Writing

Professional Memberships

Teaching and Talks