Sabrina Piersol

Sow & Tailor is thrilled to present The Blue of It, a solo exhibition by Colorado-based artist Sabrina Piersol.

In the intricate tapestry of human experience, there exists an element that transcends time, connecting past, present, and future temporalities. This element is beautifully captured in The Blue of It, an exploration that delves into themes of cycles, rebirth, constancy, and the infinite track of time. This painting series by Sabrina Piersol, inspired by a plethora of influences ranging from Mary Oliver's nature-infused poetry to the ethereal music of Fleetwood Mac, invites viewers into a world where tradition and personal narrative intermingle with the natural world, creating a profound sense of continuity and resilience.

At its core, The Blue of It is a meditation on the perennial, both in the literal sense of ever-returning flowers and the metaphorical cycles of recurring human emotion and experience. The iris, a central motif in this body of work that builds on Piersol’s landscape-informed visual language, symbolizes not just the rebirth of nature each spring, but also the enduring love and resilience passed down through generations of women. These flowers, cultivated by the Sabrina’s family for over a century, serve as living heirlooms, embodying a lineage of care, hope, and vitality.

The Blue of It also draws on the poignant reflections found in Maggie Nelson's Bluets– “a lyrical, philosophical, and often explicit exploration of personal suffering and the limitations of vision and love, as refracted through the color blue.” Nelson’s contemplations of the color that evokes both longing and serenity parallels Sabrina Piersol’s own use of blue to create a dream space— a twilight zone where time seems to stand still. This "blue hour" after sunset symbolizes a moment of in-between, a non-space where the boundaries between past and future blur, creating a continuum of projected memories and distant familial connections.

Sabrina Piersol (b. 1995, Greenwich, CT, USA) is a painter and art educator based between Southern California and Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley. Piersol studied classics and studio art at Colorado College (BA, 2017) before receiving her MFA from the University of California San Diego in 2023. She was the recipient of numerous awards including the Anderson Ranch Study Grant (2021, 2016), the Eva C. Keller Scholarship (2016-17), the Craig Herst Art Prize Scholarship (2016-2017), and the Rhode Island School of Design Annual Art Award (2015). In her painting practice, Piersol draws influence from Sapphic poetry, the natural world, and early 20th century painters. In her “landscape-informed” paintings, the artist implements organic forms while also toying with pure abstraction. Piersol aims to make the work accessible to viewers through the familiar. Her organic and bold paintings raise questions around desire, temporality, nature, and speculative extrapolation.

Piersol has had numerous solo and two-person exhibitions at the University of California, San Diego (2023, 2021); Permanent Storage Projects, Los Angeles (2019); Weber Rations, Los Angeles (2018); and 802 N Nevada, Colorado Springs (2017). She has participated in group exhibitions at Techne Art Center, San Diego (2023); Friend of a Friend, Denver (2022); the University of California, San Diego (2022, 2021); False Cast Gallery, Los Angeles (2021); Good Company Art, Los Angeles (2019); Permanent Storage Projects, Los Angeles (2017); Museum of Broken