Sarah Lejeune holds a BA in Art and English Literature from Smith College and an MFA in Painting and Sculpture from Claremont Graduate University and is a painting fellow of The Virginia Center for the Arts.
2024-5 Light Studies
"Fog" 6"x 6", mixed media on wood.
"Flight" (study). 24" x 24", mixed media on weed cloth.
"Fire Kasina", 6" x 6", mixed media on wood. (private collection)
"Flight", 36" x 72", mixed media on panel.
"Tuna Canyon", 11" x 70", mixed media on panels
Burn Scar Paintings
On January 7th, 2025, The Palisades Fire burned through the Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Topanga and the Santa Monica Mountains where I live. I documented the regrowth of the landscape with photos (see below). The photographic images inspired a series of paintings.
"Burn Scar: Sacred Datura" 60" x 42".mixed media on panel.
"Burn Scar: Giant Wild Rye" 60" x 42" , mixed media on panel.
"City Lights" 20" x 16" , mixed media on scrapwood.
Study, 36" x 36" mixed media on paper.
2025 Work in Progress
In early 2025 I returned to my practice of daily drawing. In need of a symbol for great strength and even greater kindness, I drew horses. Horses offer us the healing of their large and giving hearts. For thousands of years they have carried humans and our metaphors on their backs. Here are horses at play, unburdened.
"Six Horses Dancing on the Head of a Pin" digital composite of drawings
"The Buck" Digital composite of pastel drawings
"Los Angeles", 11" x 8", mixed media on paper.
"Sunny's Spirit Ponies" digital composite of pastel drawings
"Pirouette" 8.5 " x 11" , mixed media on paper
"Midair" 11' x 8.5". mixed media on paper
2025 -The Burn Scar
On January 7th, 2025, The Palisades Fire burned through the Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Topanga and the Santa Monica Mountains where I live. I returned from evacuation to find that my house was spared, but much of the wild land around me was devastated. In the following months I tried to make sense of the destruction by documenting the regrowth in the burn scar and tell one story of how this landscape heals. This process of documentation inevitably led to the paintings above.
January 28, arriving in the burn scar
February 1, scorched earth
February 3, the first green
March 7, wild cucumber vine buds
March 10, wild cucumber vine blossoms
March 18, a veil of green
March 30, cucumber vine fruit
April 22, poppies and fog
2025: Recent creative work on the web
Topanga New Times article with photo-essay: “Manroot”: https://topanganewtimes.com/2025/04/18/the-manroot/
Pen and ink drawing as background for singer-songwriter Susan Anders new single: “Shoes”: https://youtu.be/HqS8ycfz6_Q
Cover art for singer-songwriter Susan Anders album: Now I Am a Kite: https://susanandersmusic.com/kite
Ideas, photos and works in progress on instagram: @sarahdlejeune
2023 - 2025 Resisting Extinction
This life we have feels so fragile- subject to fires, rockslides, floods, and the unpredictable violence of humankind. I am inspired by creatures and places that have returned from near extinction, such as the sandhill cranes in southern New Mexico and the egrets and steelhead trout in southern California. These paintings capture once-threatened creatures that now thrive, and the protected lands where they live. To study something by painting it is to honor it. This body of work honors survival.
"Flying Sandhill Crane: Bosque Del Apache", 16" x 16".mixed media on wood
"Feeding SandhillCrane: Bosque Del Apache" 11" x 9" mixed media on panel
"Standing Cranes in Fog: Bosque Del Apache", 6" x 6", mixed media on scrapwood, private collection.
"Sandhill Cranes in Field", 6" x 6", mixed media on scrapwood
"Blue Heron", 16" x 20", mixed media on wood
"Egret in the Rain" 20" x 16" , mixed media on wood
"Standing Cranes, Bosque Dela Apache", 16" x 22", mixed media on wood
Steelhead Trout , 20" x 16" mixed media on wood
2020 - 2022 Pandemic Still Lives
In 2020, while recovering from Covid-19, I started a series of works on paper to create a journal of “still lives” to honor those lost to the virus. These pieces memorialize the small sustaining objects of everyday that co-exist with great loss.
Lecture Slides
2007 Belmont Beach, San Diego, Public Art: “Pixelated Summer”
Commissioned by the City of San Diego, Pixelated Summer includes two photographic tile panels, “Acqua and Fuoco” (Water and Fire) that flank the sides of the Belmont Beach public restroom adjacent to the historic rollercoaster and “The Plunge” public pool. Completed in 2007 in collaboration with Angelo and Zoe Camporaso..
Selected Interactive Exhibitions
Inspired by Fluxus art, I became interested in interactive, experiential art, creating pieces that invite public participation. As one of the founding members of The Collective, I participated in numerous community oriented art projects, such as Touch, which was exhibited in several venues in Southern California, invited viewers to wear a glove and keep it in exchange for perform the joyful interactive suggestion in the palm of the glove, such as "hop on one foot" or "sing". Handmade Histories a spoken word and installation piece in collaboration with Polly Chu was performed and exhibited on both coasts. A spoken word piece, Stones was selected for performance at the 1999 National Women’s Caucus for Art in 1996,
Selected images from interactive performative works: the Collective’s Touch, A Sea of Free Green Shoes commissioned by Barnsdall Art Park, and Vital Hypocracies.
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