Berman offers a powerful articulation of womanhood as fluid, constructed, and continually renegotiated
Sara Berman operates at the intersection of painting and performance, using auto-fiction as a means of reconstructing identity through layered portraiture. Drawing on her background in fashion design, Berman’s compositions spur from the assembly of costume, gesture, and psychological projection. Her works are built through complex visual layering, each painting beginning with an intricate harlequin underpainting that is subsequently obscured, absorbed, or partially revealed. This underlying structure becomes both a formal device and a conceptual anchor, informing her ongoing engagement with the Harlequin.
When embodied by a woman, the Harlequin becomes what the artist defines as the “Trickster Whore” - a reimagining of the historical joker as a site of agency, subversion, and self-determination. Through this shifting persona, Berman resists fixed identity, instead inhabiting a series of hybrid characters that evolve across her practice and exist in a state of becoming, shaped through performance, concealment, and transformation.
Sara Berman (b.1975, UK) obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in fashion Design from Central Saint Martins in 1999. Subsequently, she founded and managed her eponymous fashion brand for 15 years. In 2016, Sara Berman completed her Master of Fine Arts in Painting at Slade School of Fine Art. Berman has widely exhibited her work internationally, including in London, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Milan, Miami, New York, Palm Beach, Rotterdam; most recently in group presentations at Hauser & Wirth, London, the Port Visser Collection in the Netherlands and The Maison Estelle in London, Sara Berman currently lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Circus, Mimmo Scognamiglio, Milan, Italy (2026); Playing the Fool, The Arts Club, Wedel Art (2025); Where Muses Dare, Larsen Warner, Stockholm, Sweden (2025); Lapdogs and Fools, Vielmetter, Los Angeles, USA (2024); No Visible Means of Support, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida, USA (2023); The Armory Show NYC, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, New York (2022).
