Sarah Thornton-Smith

Sarah Thornton-Smith is a Boorloo/Perth-based artist, of Malay-Chinese heritage, whose practice centres on the perceptual and emotional qualities of colour. Through structural fold-outs teased from the surface of paper and pigment, and the colourwaves found in the Australian landscape or flora, her work becomes an abstracted language of form and hue. She is drawn to the rhythms of structure and the quiet repetition of pattern, sensing in them a way to trace connections—between places, moments, and ways of seeing. Leaning into the materiality of paper and pigment, her intuitive process is grounded in close observation and tactile engagement, slowing time to notice the subtle transitions where colour breathes and shadow shifts. These moments, both precise and fleeting, invite viewers into a shared space of curiosity, reflection and wonder.

Sarah has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally, with works held in major collections including the Kerry Stokes Collection and St John of God Art Collection.