Contemporary artist Sara Pope is best known for her bold, seductive oil paintings of voluptuous lips. Taking inspiration from a successful career in the fashion industry and her work in magazines as a designer and art director, Sara aims to capture the sensuality and seductive power conveyed by the lips and mouth. Interested in questions of beauty, communication, and the rise of image perfectionism, Sara uses the perspective of her commercial experience to explore these themes.

The starting point is a makeup brush and a lipstick. She paints the models lips, then, using tricks and techniques of makeup and lighting, she begins the process of creating the perfect lips. She asks the model to express different emotions which she captures photographically. Using these shots as inspiration she begins the artwork. The painting process involves several layers of thin oil-diluted paint being overlaid, blending and smoothing the colours extensively at every stage, sometimes also mixing lipstick into the paint.

Emulating the stylistic slickness of advertising, the result is glossy, perfect and irresistible. Pope’s work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions and art fairs internationally, including Next Street Gallery, Paris, The Saatchi Gallery, London, and The London Original Print Fair at the Royal Academy of Arts. Sara’s art sells regularly at auction, at Bonhams Auction House in London, and Sara is also the first British female artist in over 70 years to have a piece of work accepted into the Vatican collection.