Sarah Jane Moon (b.1982, Wellington, New Zealand) is a British New Zealand figurative painter who lives and works in London and Sussex. Moon explores issues relating to queer identity and the performance of gender in her work, which often depict people and symbolic objects in vibrant colour. Her use of heavy impasto, saturated colour and gestural mark making is energetic and distinctive.

Moon was raised in New Zealand and gained qualifications in Art History and Theory there and in Australia, before eventually settling in the UK. She received a thorough training in observational painting at The Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea.

Moon has exhibited widely, including with the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the New Zealand Portrait Gallery. Her work gained particular attention after a solo exhibition in 2019 and selection for the National Portrait Gallery's Portrait Award in both 2019 and 2020.

As a prize winner in the 2023 Queen Britain Art Awards and recipient of the Arts Charitable Trust Award and the Bulldog Bursary for Portraiture her work has consistently been recognised for its ambition and singularity. It has been collected extensively internationally and featured in Time Magazine, The Guardian, Wallpaper*, Studio International among other publications. Moon is represented in the Soho House Beacon Collection at Brighton Beach House and the James Wallace Collection at Pah Homestead in Auckland, New Zealand. She has also been included in the Pride Power List, which celebrates the achievements of notable LGBTQI+ people, and is a regular supporter of Stonewall UK, Terrence Higgins Trust, Pride in London and Art for Youth.

@sarah_jane_moon

Photo by Jason Ashwood