Sarah Contos is a multi-disciplinary artist who situates her practice in shifting approaches to identity, eroticism, femininity, popular culture and history. She is an intuitive bricoleur, harnessing elements of sculpture, textiles, screen-printing and found objects to express a deeply personal discourse with a constructed personality, or alter ego. Her background in theatre and set design brings a unique mis-en-scène to her works, which can range from totemic and shamanistic to the autobiographical and memorialistic. Equal parts fantastical and recognisable, Contos exposes the dualistic nature of objects and materials and revels in the space between playful and menacing, innocent and fetishistic, anthropomorphic and primordial.

Contos has received numerous prizes, residencies and commissions. Most notably, she was awarded the inaugural Ramsay Art Prize in 2017 for her work Sarah Contos Presents: The Long Kiss Goodbye, which is now part of the Art Gallery of South Australia’s collection. Contos has exhibited at major Australian institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Australian Experimental Arts Foundation, Adelaide; Carriageworks, Sydney; and Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne.