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UK-based abstract artist and educator, Sara Downham-Lotto founded Arts Lab in 2016. She has a background in Fine Art, Art History, Social Enterprise and more recently, Peace Studies. 

Sara set up the Lab as a consolidation of over 35 years exhibiting, curating and facilitating art in higher education institutions and communities in the UK and abroad. Passionate about social transformation and bringing people together through the arts, she wanted to co-create with artists and creative participants an organic model for changemakers across broad-ranging communities and organisations.

In  2022, Sara went to Senegal for 6 months for artist residencies in Saint Louis and Dakar, and to run a project with talibé children. These experiences inspired a natural transition into the field of Peace and Conflict.

She then went on to study for a Masters in Peace, Resilience and Social Justice at the University of Bradford, completed in 2023. Sara’s dissertation, Contributions of Contemporary Visual Art to Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation, has shaped this latest iteration of Arts Lab as a platform supporting the field more specifically. Significantly influential was also a placement in Rwanda last year where she was invited to run a multi-disciplinary Visual Arts for Peace programme for students of Peace and Conflict Studies, together with a workshop for survivors of genocide. Finally, in this vocational ‘odyssey’ Sara owes much to the writings and wisdoms of peacebuilder and scholar, John Paul Lederach.

Photograph: July 2024 Pécs, Hungary

Photograph: courtesy Plymouth University of the Arts 2014

BIOGRAPHY

Lives in rural Northumberland, UK. 

 

2022-23 MA Peace, Resilience & Social Justice, University of Bradford, UK.

Certificate Qualities & Strategies of Peacemakers, Initiatives of Change, online.

Theatre of Oppressed introductory training, University of Bradford, UK.

2017-18 Certificate & Fellow for Social Enterprise, School for Social Entrepreneurs, UK.

1991      ITTI Certificate in Teaching English as Foreign Language, International House, Budapest, Hungary.

1987-88 MPhil History of Art, University of Glasgow, UK.

1981-84 BA Fine Art (Painting & Art History), Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

1980-81 Art Foundation Course, St Martin’s School of Art London, UK.

Selected Awards, Grants & Residencies

2024 

  • British Council Venice Fellowship Programme – 1 month British Pavilion exhibition ambassador at Venice Art Biennale, & practice-based research – Friends Everywhere – Italy.
  • University of Bradford Turing Scheme Grant – European Studies & Leadership Skills, Summer School Programme, University of Pécs, Hungary.

2023

  • University of Bradford Northern Ireland study trip.
  • Turing Scheme Grant – postgraduate placement & research in Rwanda (Kigali Conference – Peace Education in a Time of Crisis; ran Visual Arts for Peace programme with/for Dept. Peace & Conflict Studies, PIASS, Huye).

2021- 2022

  • Artist residency Village des Arts, Dakar, Senegal.
  • Artist residency Le Château Cultural Centre, Saint-Louis, Senegal.

2015-21

Various UK grants for Arts Lab projects, including: National Lottery, Elmgrant, Matrix Causes, Devon County Council, HMP Dartmoor, Dartington Hall Trust, Helen Foundation, Lloyds Bank, Plymouth Arts Centre.

2013-14

Arts Council/ Arts University Plymouth AA2A residency award, UK – Tide Mark Project

1988-91

3 consecutive British Council/Polish Government Postgraduate Scholarships – Gdańsk Art Academy (PWSSP), Poland.

Teaching Practice

Sara’s approach to teaching, encourages dialogue, connection and new approaches to problem-solving in challenging environments.

Sharing her learning, together with her own creative practice as an abstract painter, she brings high quality teaching and facilitation to a broad range of groups and individuals around the UK and abroad. Sara’s sessions are informative, fun and engaging in equal measure, and bring out the creative in everyone, regardless of background or experience. 

Creating a safe, non-judgemental environment, all her teaching sessions are multidisciplinary. Participants are facilitated in the combined practices of looking, of making art together and of critiquing and discussing input that draws on world art history, other artforms, and parallels with the theory and practice of peacebuilding. 

Over 35 years’ teaching experience has strengthened Sara’s belief in creativity as a force for good; it gives voice, it builds bridges, aids healing, helps us to imagine and to build new worlds, and it fosters creative approaches to peacebuilding practice and pedagogy.

Selected Teaching

2024

– Friends Everywhere workshop series for British Pavilion visitors at Venice Biennale-

– Art Games Celebrating 50 years of Peace Studies at University of Bradford – –   Golden Jubilee Conference, Bradford, UK

2023

– Visual Arts for Peace 4-day programme – Department of Peace & Conflict Studies, PIASS, Huye, Rwanda.

– Experiments with Creative Play – University of Bradford Peace Studies Dept., UK.

2016-22

– Arts Lab CIC projects, artist & graduate training & What’s On workshops – Dartington Hall Trust, Devon, UK.

2013-15

– Associate Lecturer – Plymouth University Institute of Education, UK.

2013-14

– Occasional tutoring Plymouth University of the Arts – Film, Painting, Drawing & Printmaking & Art Foundation students, UK.

1998-01

– Art tutor – Carrboro Arts Centre & private, USA.

1996-98

– Lecturer in Fine Art & Art History – Wirral Metropolitan College, UK.

– A Level Art History – Basil Paterson College, Edinburgh, Scotland.

1993-96

– Visiting Fine Art lecturer – New York (Parsons Design School & Cooper Union), USA; Vancouver (Emily Carr Inst.), Canada;  Chile & Venezuela.

1988-93

– Visiting Fine Art lecturer – Poland, Russia, Estonia & UK (incl. Royal Academy & Chelsea, Wimbledon, Gray’s & Duncan of Jordanstone Schools of Art).

1985-86

– Visiting Fine Art lecturer – Australia (9 art schools) & India (3 art schools).

Painting Practice 

Process-led and experimental in approach, Sara works primarily with paper and mixed media, allowing pieces to evolve into 2D and 3D inventions. The pieces are intended to be seen as objects in themselves, rather than as a representation of something else. Recycling old paintings and discarded art created in collaborative workshops, her layering process involves a radical deconstructing and reconstructing process – as much about building up as taking away – and the discoveries made en route. Cutting up, rubbing out, scratching into, painting over and rearranging, her intuition, informed by years of making and looking at art, tells her when the artwork is complete.

Each work becomes a kind of palimpsest of her own and others’ past experiences in the act of making a painting. ‘Others’ in this case, are workshop participants she has facilitated over the years: adults and carers with mental health challenges, art students, community builders, English language learners, family groups, genocide survivors, nuns, medical practitioners, peacebuilders, primary and secondary school children, prisoners, refugees, school refusers, the talibé, teacher trainers ….

 

These playful explorations in colour and light, texture and decorative forms end up looking like living organisms, multilayered and colour-saturated. Histories are exposed through traces of layers or others’ ‘lives’ seen beneath the surface. 

To view Sara’s artwork that directly connects with Arts Lab’s mission >>>> Gallery:

For all other artwork by Sara, see her dedicated website saradownhamlotto.net

 

Recent Group Exhibitions

2023   Galerie Nationale d’Art Dakar, Senegal – Talibé Triptych

2022   Hann Maristes Forte B, Dakar, Senegal – Autour du Bol, Dakar Art Biennale

2021   Exeter parks – The Imaginarium of Us: Interactive Installations

2020   HMP Dartmoor & Arts Lab, Dartington – Inside Out

2019   Arts Lab, Dartington – Paint Matters

2018   Space Gallery, Dartington – A Quiet Collaboration * Arts Lab, Dartington – Arts     Lab artists’ showcase

2017   Arts Lab, Dartington – Do more of what you love

2015   Salcombe Contemporary, Devon * Artworks, South Brent, Devon

2014   Ariel Centre, Totnes – The Dart Watershed * Art at 96, Topsham, Devon * Artworks, South Brent, Devon * Bunker 3 Project nr. Salcombe, Devon

 

Recent Solo Exhibitions

2021   Maketank, Exeter – Play: Paintings & interactive installations * Dartmoor National Park Visitor Centre – Shared Worlds: Collaborations with Prisoners

2020   Arts Lab, Dartington – Art as Collaboration II

2019   Arts Lab, Dartington – Art as Collaboration I

2018   Space Gallery, Dartington – Illuminate

2017   Arts Lab, Dartington – Fill it with Colour

2016   South Brent Old School Centre, Devon – Sense of Places

2015   Espace d’Art, Fourcès, France – Words

2014   Arts University Plymouth – Connecting the Dots * Artworks, South Brent, Devon – Words * Birdwood House, Totnes – Repeat

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