Sarah Contos layers and manipulates sourced objects, personal artefacts and vestiges of popular culture to draw attention to the relationships between imagery, form and materiality. Working across sculpture, textiles, painting, video and installation, her work explores how emotional, psychological and theatrical interactions trigger intimate experiential responses within a broader collective memory. Often referencing art history, fashion, theatre and cinema, Contos examines the duality and ontological nature of objects with a contemporary and retrospective mindset.

Contos has collaborated on performance, costume and stage design projects since 2002. Since 2009 her work has been included in numerous significant solo and group exhibitions at major Australian institutions, including Eye Lash Horizon, University of New South Wales Galleries, Sydney (2024); In the Belly of Mary Shelley, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2023); Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart (2019); Balnaves Contemporary Intervention Series: Nikola Tesla Sends Theda Bara to Mars, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2018); Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, (2018); and Carriageworks, Sydney (2017). Contos has undertaken residencies at Artspace, Sydney; 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Beijing; and DESA, Ubud, Indonesia. Contos received the 2027 Copyright Agency Partnerships (CAP) Grant Commission, culminating in a forthcoming exhibition at the Edith Cowen University City Campus Public Gallery. She was a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Art Prize (2026) and was awarded the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris Studio (2019), the Ramsay Art Prize (2017), and the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship (2011). Contos is represented in numerous significant private and public collections, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Artbank, Australia; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Buxton Collection, Melbourne; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney and MECCA, Australia.

Eye Lash Horizon

Sarah Contos

Eye Lash Horizon