Artist Biography

Sára Molčan (b. 1986) is a Canadian contemporary artist who captures the universal desire to be liked in her large-scale conceptual realism paintings. Unequivocally millennial, Molčan’s work addresses the careful curation of personas, our imperfect existence, and the ambivalence towards romantic partners in the digital era. Molčan’s larger-than-life selfies examine society’s sense of insecurity and our culture’s desire to seek meaning from the meaningless. Molčan holds a BA from Vancouver Island University and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She currently lives and works in Vancouver.

Artist Statement

I am fascinated with human identity and interaction. I find the medium we use to communicate with one another to be a continual source of motivation for me to create work. Influenced by digital culture, memes, reality television and the internet, my paintings seek to occupy space between reality and fiction. We melt into our online avatars, swapping identities like phone numbers, each selfie implying a different version of ourselves. Combing through the breadcrumbs left by romantic partners and deciphering emojis like modern hieroglyphics, we seek meaning from the meaningless. Instagram has become the new religion, breeding a culture of comparison. I dissect my curated identities next to my romantic failures, analyzing how fictional versions of myself have bled into reality. I simultaneously own my masks and fail to, only existing for the perverse enjoyment of others. My work is representational of my generation’s desire to act in the movie of our own lives. The world we have constructed has turned tangible experience pale in comparison to the imagined landscape we’ve created for ourselves. Drawing inspiration from user interfaces, gameplay, and sexting, my oversized and ephemeral selfies demand to be removed from their analog context to be placed back in the virtual world.

Website: http://saramolcan.com