Premio Combat Prize

The sculpture ‘Golden Bough’ was carved in Tuscany for exhibition in Los Angeles in 2014, where it was installed with the photographic diptych ‘Tourniquet’.
Sarah Danays is a Los Angeles based British sculptor and photographer whose work is inspired by gesture and antiquities - notably broken ones. Shortlisted in Le Prix de la Sculpture Noilly Prat 2008 as one of the UK’s top five emerging sculptors, her practice involves extensive research into an object’s history and context to develop new interpretations for significant museum pieces, and to inform the “treatment” of broken objects from her own collection.
Here, fragments of sacred and secular antiques, previously separated by different countries, cultures, centuries and religions are intermingled with marvels from nature and her own marble and alabaster carvings - or work of past anonymous sculptors - to create a unique fusion of energies and symbols. These assemblages are meticulously photographed, their chromogenic documentation achieving a powerful merger of contemporary amulet and archived artifact.
These pieces, in their stillness, speak not only of damage and loss - physical, emotional, psychological - but also of rebuilding, through their conspicuous repair and new associations. Danays’ ”metaphysical surgery” creates entities that are altogether new and whole.

“Danays effects such radical juxtaposition with such remarkable craft.” Peter Frank
“Grim, poignant and graceful.” John Seed for The Huffington Post
Sarah Danays graduated with a Joint Honors Degree in Fine Art and Art History from Camberwell College of Arts in 1993 (now part of University of the Arts, London) and had her first solo show at the Adam Gallery, London in 1995. In 2003 she gained an MA in Textiles as Contemporary Art Practice from the Department of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London and later went on to study Stone Carving for Contemporary Sculptors at City & Guilds, London. In 2008 she was shortlisted in Le Prix de la Sculpture Noilly Prat as one of the UK’s top five emerging sculptors. In 2010 she relocated to Los Angeles and in 2013 was awarded a scholarship by the Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA) with her first LA solo show opening at Robert Berman Gallery in 2014. In 2016 she was included in MOAH’S ‘British Invasion’ , a group show of the best of British artists working out of LA since the 60s, spearheaded by David Hockney; in the same year ‘Sarah Danays’ Arms of the Portland Vase’ was exhibited at the Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire, UK. She has exhibited internationally and her work is in collections in Europe, the USA and Australia. She works out of studios in Los Angeles, California, and when in Europe, Tuscany, Italy.