photo by Freya Z. Dobson

Sara S. Wallach

Sara Sofia Wallach is a fine art photographer based in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. After earning her bachelor's degree in photography from Bard College, she spent time living in Eastern Europe, including Greece and Albania, and later London where she pursued a Master's degree in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her creative interests stem from a lifelong project on meaning in mess, ruin, death, and impermanence.

Artist’s Statement, 2023:
My work focuses mainly on making abstract art from leftovers, ruins, and trash. I am interested in using the transformative power of photography – light, reflectivity, and framing – to create new meanings from discarded material. This work is a practice in presence (attunement) and compassion. In searching for these moments of transformation, I am also alchemizing the darkest corners of my psyche. I seek to make chaos into reverence. Photography allows me a modality through which to explore healing and reparation. The ability to transform ugly, unwanted things into something worth looking at gives me my life’s purpose. I work mainly with film, enjoying the textures and colors of certain types. 

The photographic work is closely tied to my interest in archetypal psychology, symbolism, and mysticism. In my daily life, I exist between my photography practice and studying Jungian psychology. For me, there is a deep connection between creating images photographically and recognizing the imagery in dreams, and the symbols in waking life.