Book Review: Rhinotopia Beginnings: The Art of Sarah Soward

Used with permission by the author

“I accidentally wrote a book. That’s how my life goes, though. I fall into things and end up reveling in them while learning as much as I can.” (Sarah Soward)

I am a fan of the artist Sarah Soward’s, so when I found out that she had a book collection for her work, I was thrilled. One of America’s most important new artists, Sowards work and use of color is just phenomenal and always leaves me with a lasting impression of each piece that is cemented in my mind forever. Each painting transports me outside of myself and into her world of the Rhinotopia.

Rhinotopia Beginnings is a collection of the first thirty-eight oil paintings in Sarah Soward’s Rhinotopia series. A Prolific artist, this collection is of paintings that Soward has amassed are of Rhino’s who are put into landscapes/locations where they would not normally be seen, to help drive home the important message that rhinos still exist, should exist and that they should exist everywhere.

This work establishes a link between the rhino to the sacred that is foremost Soward’s series. Paintings like “Devil by my Side” are visceral. You can feel the painting in your guts. Colors play your emotions, like in the painting “Part of me” that has a majesty that holds your attention like a command. To add a layer of secular connection to the work, each painting is named after a song. Each title relates to an aspect of the deity honored in their respective painting and the inspiration that motivated the artist to create the work.

Many of the paintings are captivating in the energy that they possess. “Rhino Charger Heaven” has a movement and energy an “Hot Lava” carries you on a current of light and heat that lingers on the mind long after you have seen them.“These Hands” is magnificent and has a detail that seems like photography but you know cannot be. There is a sense of majesty that would remember seeing in impressionalist painters and that show the meaning of each painting through the brushstrokes, as though notes in a piece of music or a jazz riff by an adept horn player.

My favorite painting “More” (I’ve loved this painting for years) is a sombre figure of a rhino skeleton in a library with nameless books on the shelves. The painting is in a color contrast that is like a…