Sarah Maranze Levy

New York Academy of Art

Korey, 2019
charcoal on paper, 41 x 36 inches

Tell us about the work that you have submitted.
This is Korey King Wise, a member of the Exonerated Five (formerly referred to as the Central Park Five). After watching Ava DuVernay's documentary When They See Us last year, I couldn't stop thinking about the five men and the devastating injustice they had to face. This piece was a response to thinking about Wise and his story.

How would you describe your studio practice?
I draw as a way of processing things. This process of looking intensely at a subject is a way of learning more about them, empathizing with them, and getting to spend time thinking about them and their story. In my practice, I draw laps around the subject – looking, marking, looking, and re-marking – over and over again. I look where I am compelled to, and I make marks to leave a record of where I've gone.

How do you approach your work?
I am interested in looking and responding. I look where I am compelled to look and make marks as a record of this – what I see, how I emotionally respond – and then I repeat this process until I feel satisfied, leaving the history of the drawing visible as I go. I am more concerned with conveying the feeling of a thing than the academic depiction of said thing.

Website: www.sarahlevyart.com
Instagram: @sarahlevyart