Sarah Breyer was born in Rochester, NY, and currently lives and works in Kyoto, dividing her time between Echizen Imadate and New York City. She was fascinated by Kyoto and moved to Kyoto in 1980 to study Japanese woodblock printmaking under Hiroshi Yoshida's son, Toshi Yoshida (1911-1995), before devoting herself to aquatint. She had her first solo exhibition in Kyoto in 1982, followed by solo shows in Japan, Hong Kong, the U.S., and Europe.

Sarah first encountered poured washi paperwork, the technique she soon adopted as her own during a visit to Dieu Donne paper studio in New York City in 1986. This painterly and somewhat unpredictable technique seemed a perfect blend of chance and design, which led her to search out the ancient Japanese paper center of Imadate, Echizen, as the place to make large-scale poured-paper images. She has created her art there continuously since 1986, as the only Western artist to do so. She is assisted by a team of master women papermakers who help her move the giant screens, essential tools in her large-scale works. In 2012, Brayer embarked on her Luminosity series, incorporating light-sensitive pigments into the wet paper to infuse her art with inner light.

In 1992, Sarah became the first artist to exhibit her washi works at Byodo-in Temple, a World Heritage Site dating back to the Heian period, as part of the 1200th anniversary of Kyoto; in 2007, she was named the first foreign female cover artist for the internationally renowned CWAJ Contemporary Print Show in Tokyo; and in 2013, she received the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award for promoting Japanese culture internationally through her unique works on Echizen Washi paper. In 2021, a retrospective exhibition was held at Kyoto's Komyo Temple, featuring 45 works on paper. Sarah's works are in the collections of the British Museum, the National Museum of Asian Art, the New York Public Library, and the American Embassy in Tokyo, among others.

Sarah Brayer Biodata PDF