Peruvian-American artist Sarah Zapata has had clarity around her preferred artistic medium from a very young age. “I distinctly remember the exact moment I realized I was interested in textiles. I was in seventh grade and went to Goodwill. Surrounded by all these old clothes, I suddenly realized these were materials I could paint and recobble,” she recalls. Sarah pursued a BFA in Fibers from the University of North Texas and has since dedicated her practice entirely to textiles, exploring their potential to convey ideas in increasingly complex ways. 

In her breathtaking installations, Sarah employs techniques such as weaving, coiling, and latch-hook to create vivid and unapologetic settings that draw inspiration from both her Peruvian heritage as well feminist and queer theories. Often employing stripes, a symbol that alludes to society’s outcasts, she builds otherworldly settings with amorphous structures covered in kaleidoscopic textiles that invite the audience to consider alternate realities. 

World-building has always been essential to Sarah’s practice. During her time at Fountainhead, she had time to delve deeper into this concept, discovering unexpected connections between her work and themes of geology, a realization she’s sure will reverberate into her artistic practice moving forward. “In Miami, I was able to crystallize a lot of the language around my work,” she says. “Time is such a luxury, and I really enjoyed having the space to think and read.”

Her stint at Fountainhead was also spent finessing the details of her solo presentation at Art Basel Miami in partnership with UBS Art Studio. A textile-based architectural installation that meditates on the passage of time—an essential concept in weaving and a key element in Sarah’s approach to world-building. Entitled Upon the Divide of Vermilion, the installation will reimagine an earlier work, now interwoven with new, original elements, including horizontal stripes and structures inspired by geological ruins and sedimentary layers.