About Sarah Marie Lacy

When I was almost 13, I came down with what we thought was the flu. Except I never got better. I spent most of the next several years in bed.

By the time I was 18, I was so sick that nearly every adult in my life had given up on me achieving anything more than living in my parents basement.

I was kicked out of high school because the sick kid wasn’t “worth the cost of educating.”

My family doctor once told me “that maybe one day, if I was lucky, I could take a watercolour class at the local community college.”

I decided to build a life I loved anyways. I decided to become an artist.

I learned how to manage my symptoms.

I eventually studied art in France, becoming part of a 500 year lineage.

My experiences deeply shaped how I see people. I learned to see the stories that live in our bodies and on our faces.

I know what it’s like to get knocked down 1000 times, but get up 1001 times.

I see the way our resilience, our kindness, our grace, our strength, our humour, write themselves on our skin and bones.

I make art to honour those stories.

I paint portraits because the story of your life, of your tenacity and grit, deserves to be honoured and shared.

Because you deserve a mirror that reminds you of everything you have overcome.

Because you deserve a mirror that reminds you of how much you have loved and been loved.
 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a portrait is worth a lifetime of them.