Sarah Hardacre

Sarah Hardacre lives and works in Salford, UK. She is a member of the Mirabel Studio Group in Manchester and the Hotbed Press Printmakers' Studio in Salford where she continues her practice.

Her recent body of work presents a series of collages and photo silk screen prints that reveal images from the Salford local history archives and clippings from second hand gentleman’s magazines. While the subject matter of these works is, in the main, the voluptuous landscape of the female body overlaying the phallic like uprising of the modern, concrete inner city skyline; these pieces are far from being a feminist critique. Rather, they can be viewed as a biographical fetishism of the artist, a juxtaposition of the dehumanising elements of the architectural surroundings of her home with the very human act of physical sensuality and eroticism. Paying homage to the high-rise housing experiments of the late 1950’s and 60’s, Hardacre enacts in her practice a sensual exploration of Salford’s post industrial landscape, a regeneration of it’s towering beauties and questions the changing role of women within the home and working class society.

Expanding on these themes, Hardacre’s latest collages introduce a broader imagery, reflecting her social research interests, not limited to, the history of the Working Class Movement, Mass Observation, The New Architecture Movement and The Architect’s Revolutionary Council.

Her work has been exhibited internationally in group exhibitions and she has contributed to artist led initiatives including the open-ended artists exchange between studio groups in Manchester and Bristol; in association with Castlefield Gallery Project Space, the Arts Council England ‘Startrunning’ series of international live art events and the Islington Mill Studios year long residency program in Berlin. Sarah Hardacre’s  work is included in the collections of The British Museum, The British Council and numerous private collections throughout Europe and the US.