Sarah Boyts Yoder

In a world that all too often insists on inevitability and separateness, Boyts Yoder’s paintings are playful refusals of these false assurances and fixedness. Using a visual vocabulary of emblems and symbols she has generated over time, each work fluently articulates how joyfully form can evade our need for categorization. Can definition be captured and confounded at the same time? Instead of frustration, is it freedom?

What emerges from these questions are welcoming, mischievous and engaging spaces for imaginative play, a celebratory take on color and material, and an invitation to open up. In this context, Boyts Yoder sees painting as a hopeful, optimistic act, and the mode of abstraction as an exploratory and generative state of being.

Interview with Sarah Boyts Yoder

Hi Sarah! Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in becoming an artist? Who or what were some of your most important early influences?
I was a kid who loved drawing.  I was the oldest of four kids and it was the 80’s.  I had a level of freedom and boredom and got to dive in and really play around.  When I got to middle and high school, luckily I had some great teachers who really encouraged me and I also was lucky enough to live in a city with a fantastic modern art museum.  The Modern in Fort Worth, Texas, was a huge early influence because I was able to experience contemporary work at a formative time.  My high school art teacher nominated me for a program where high school students got to basically go to ‘museum camp' and really be behind the scenes at the museum and interact with the professionals there.  It showed me there was a language for contemporary art and it gave permission for a lot of my artistic instincts.

Where are you currently based?
I live and work in Charlottesville, VA.

Can you describe your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it functional? Do any of these specific aspects directly affect your work?
I’m currently sharing a studio space with a great artist and good friend.  She generously opened her space to me when I unexpectedly had to move out of my last studio.  It’s been so nice to work side by side on our own projects and be able to discuss not just our artistic ideas but also trade professional advice and ask questions. 

We’re currently building a permanent studio at our home, it’s a big dream come true and I can’t wait to move in!

 What are you working on in the studio right now?
For the last year I’ve been exploring making monotypes with gel plates.  I have no printmaking experience and with the gel plates you don’t need a press or any special equipment or materials.  I have several plates of different sizes and I can keep multiple ones going at the same time.   

What are the primary themes of your work right now?
Persistent, insistent color.  ‘Bright colors as restorative stimulants’ (from Leif Enger’s novel, I Cheerfully Refuse)

What is on your mind a lot recently?
Cartoons.

That moment when an everyday object gets magicked and it’s dancing and vibrating and bursting at the seams with energy, right before it becomes a new thing.  That moment of transformation.

What is a typical day like? If you don't have a typical day, what is an ideal day?"
Ideal day is any day with 5 hours uninterrupted in the studio.

What gets you in a mindset conducive to making work?
Simply getting to and being in the studio.  It’s why I work on multiple pieces at one time in different areas of the studio, so there is always somewhere to go to keep moving.  Setting and keeping things in motion is important to me and the feeling I’m trying to capture, or conversely, unlock.

What criteria do you follow for selecting materials? How long have you worked with this particular media or method?
I never took to oil paint so I use mainly anything waterbased.  I’m too impatient to wait long for paint to dry and I want to be able to respond to the materials or the painting or the composition and make big changes right when I feel I need to.

‘Selecting’ materials is a big part of my practice.  I buy a LOT of my materials second hand, at a local creative reuse store called Scrappy Elephant. 

In graduate school I started buying gallons of mistinted interior latex paint at the hardware store in weird colors because it was so cheap and ‘official’ gesso was so expensive.  It also gave me something to respond to right away because it wasn’t just blank and white.

That’s become an important tool—introducing found materials that initiate or invite a response.  It’s also something to do with ‘making it work’ with what is in front of you.  What can you make?  What can you do?  What can you set in motion with what you’re given? 

I’m still personally choosing paint colors, I’m hunting and gathering.  But I need to come across them in a way, be in the act of searching (which is curious and open minded and about a willingness to try something ((which is about mischievousness, bravery and humility)).

I need to go to a place or put myself in a position where the materials can come across me.  Then we can work together.

The studio is that place I’ve set up and can go where things can come across me.  And I can figure out what to do with them.  What comes out of this collaboration, what’s been placed in my path and what do I do about it, are the paintings.  Hahaha, that’s life!

Can you walk us through your overall process? How long has this approach been a part of your practice?
Go out and about as mentioned above.  Come across interesting, unexpected, new, affordable materials and bring them to the studio.  Figure out how to make them interact or figure out how to set them loose so that something new can come from it.  Which illustrates how wild the world is, how layered and unpredictable it can be, how things can turn on a dime.  This can be staggeringly heavy but it’s also inspiring and cause for hope.  That’s what I feel and want to feel more of and want others to feel.  Resolute.  So the paintings are buoyant and restless and fluid and joyful and resolute - which is proof of concept I suppose, well proof of my concept.

Can you talk about some of the ongoing interests, imagery, and concepts that have informed your process and body of work over time? How do you anticipate your work progressing in the future?
I’ve been working with the same several forms for over ten years now.  Painting or drawing them is always where I start, now I don’t even really think about it.

If paintings are like songs, and I believe they are, and making them is like making music, which I believe it is, I’ve been playing with the same several notes this whole time.  Just combining and re combining them in infinitely different ways and there’s always room for something new.  I love watching jazz musicians playing together – they’re so loose but so alert.  Attuned to so many tiny signals, ready to step into any flowing new path that opens up.

I see my work as continuously flowing from one original source so I anticipate it remaining flowing.  The turns it takes and places it collects and pools or becomes fast and rapid for a while will depend on what I come across and throw into it.  Which is what fascinates me about working and the experience of being in the studio.

Do you pursue any collaborations, projects, or careers in addition to your studio practice? If so, can you tell us more about those projects, and are there connections between your studio practice and these endeavors?
I love collaboration for the example I gave above about throwing something into the mix of what’s always and continuously flowing.  Most recently my work was translated through handweaving with wool onto a sweater (via ElevenSix Knits).  I loved seeing the image literally set in motion because a person was wearing it.

Similarly, I worked with a friend and her company Holding Forth, to translate paintings onto room size, handwoven, sheeps wool rugs.  We sent images via WhatsApp to weavers in Morocco and they took it from there.  It was like a really delightful game of telephone between artists using really different materials and scale. 

I love seeing what’s possible.

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?
I’ve been reading all the novels by Miriam Towes I can get my hands on, so far: A Complicated Kindness, Women Talking, Fight Night.

Her work is about fighting and hoping and not bowing down and it’s so hilarious but also so moving and touches me so deeply.  I love reading and always am reading.  I’m so inspired by writers and so grateful for the places they create where I can go and the channels they open up for me emotionally and with regards to my imagination.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory and why do they stand out?
I LOVE Kenichi Hoshine’s paintings so much and when they come across my screen I’m drawn in like a magnet, I wish I could see them in person.

An exhibition that stands out right away, even though it was a few years ago, but I think about a lot is Etel Adnan at the Guggenheim in 2021.  Small paintings, SO powerful.

I think ALL the time about what her partner Simone Fattal said about her work: ‘Her works play the role the old icons used to play for people who believed.  They exude energy and give energy.  They shield you like talismans.  They help you live your everyday life.’

That’s simply and exactly what I want my work to do. 

Do you have any tips or advice that someone has shared with you that you have found particularly helpful?
The brilliant painter Ky Anderson gave me advice once which was to always have an exhibition ready to go, so you can say yes and embrace opportunities when they come along.

What’s coming up next for you?
I’m excited to be included in the group exhibition, Mark Making, at Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina at the beginning of 2026.  In addition to that I’m able to go and work with a REAL master printer, named Perry Obee, at his studio at Obee Editions in Black Mountain, NC on a group of monoprints. 

Thank you for sharing your work and talking with us!

To find out more about Sarah and her work, check out her website.