Welcome to Studio Philips
About the artist
My name is Sarah Philips, I’m an artist from Burnett Heads, in tropical Queensland. My work focuses on themes of connection, memory and transience, and is heavily influenced by my time spent on the ocean and the coasts growing up. I specialise in marine subjects and seascapes, as well as portraiture.
I hope you enjoy my work.
About the ocean
I’m far from the first or the last painter to be obsessed with the ocean. That said, a little context about my relationship with it could be of interest when considering my work, so here we go.
The ocean is something my dad gave me- or less poetically, he passed his passion along, as his father did to him. To my grandfather, the ocean was a living, and a way to feed his family. He took my dad and his brother out on the boat with him from as early as they can recall, and my father and uncle still fish to this day, often together. As my dad grew older, and life threw the curveballs it does to so many of us, it came to mean more.
Living in coastal Bundaberg, my parents took us kids to the beaches and rivers often. On the ordinary side of things, Dad taught me to enjoy the ocean with fishing, catching ghost crabs, and getting a good amount of air in the boat by hitting a wave at speed at just the right (wrong) angle. Ordinary joys, not to be minimised.
But as I grew and like him took a few curveballs, he taught me probably the most impactful lesson I’ve had. In a world that I struggled with socially as a child, and in a family that, while loving, was saturated with depression, he provided an extraordinary notion. The ocean, as a balm. As company when lonely, as calm when you’ve been shaken, and as beauty when the ugliness of the world and the actions of people make you ache for it.
A part of the world that does not fail to remind you why you would want to be in it.
Exhibitions, awards and residencies
2025 Peoples Choice Award Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Award - Lethbridge Gallery
2025 The Push The Pull - Solo show, Mission Beach Art Gallery
2025 Here Comes the Sun - Online exhibition hosted by ASMA
2025 Marine & Maritime - Online exhibition hosted by ASMA
2024 ASMA National Exhibition - Victorian Artists Society Gallery Melbourne
2024 Artist of the month October - Mission Beach Art Gallery
2024 Best Watercolour in Show Cairns Show Art Exhibition - Cairns Show
2024 Seafarers - Online exhibition hosted by ASMA
2023 ASMA National Exhibition - Victorian Artists Society Gallery Melbourne
2023 Small Boats - Online exhibition hosted by ASMA
2023 Fish and Ships - Online exhibition hosted by ASMA
2023 Lady Nelson Art Exhibition - Australian Wooden Boat Festival ; ASMA ; Lady Nelson Tallship ; TASports
2022 Lady Nelson Residency - Australian Wooden Boat Festival ; ASMA ; Lady Nelson Tallship ; TASports
2022 Victorian Artists Society & ASMA Maritime Exhibition - Frater Gallery Melbourne
2022 ASMA National Exhibition - Royal Art Society of NSW Lavender Bay Gallery Sydney
2022 Harbour Life - Online exhibition hosted by ASMA
2022 Our Ties to the Horizon - Solo show, Brisbane Square Library
2021 ASMA 25th Anniversary Exhibition - Online exhibition hosted by ASMA
2021 Finalist Change - Frankston Art Centre
2021 Falling Tides - Solo show, Brisbane Square Library
2020 RAW: Natural Born Artists “Premiere” - The Met Brisbane
2019 Separate Horizons - Solo show, Reverends Brisbane
2018 Trio Eclectic - Bean. Brisbane
2015 Peoples Choice Award Lighthouse Art Show - Burnett Heads Lighthouse Festival
2013 Best in Show St Luke's Art Award - St Luke’s Bundaberg