Hello! My name is Sarah Sutphin and I’m the artist behind Melting Flower. I started this body of work in 2023 after painting still life, portraiture and paintings that leaned towards realism in prior years. I suddenly felt the urge to let loose a bit and play around with abstract and textured painting. It was probably a mix of feeling burnt out from the paintings I was doing at the time and wanting to make work that had more of an emotional tie and felt authentic to myself. I played around and ultimately developed my Melting Flower style which is heavily inspired by scenes in nature, color, and texture. I let my brushstrokes thickly “melt” into one another.

When I began painting this work, I briefly abandoned my paintings that were keeping me afloat at the time. I followed an unknown that just felt right. This change in work was followed by a change in life. I had a studio/gallery that I ran in Chicago and I was suddenly notified that I could not renew the lease. I then moved all of my things to the basement of my condo building and began to work from there and have showings in my dining room. As I painted with the cobwebs and spiders, I continued to make my Melting Flower paintings. Surprisingly to me, this is when my career as an artist really kind of began to take off. I started to grow a mailing list and offer my work in monthly releases. Looking back, I’m really glad I followed making work that feels meaningful to me.

Three years later, I have independently sold over 350 original Melting Flower paintings. It’s crazy and I’m very lucky. My dad’s an artist and I was lucky to have been raised by parents who encouraged me to explore the arts.

Painting is my passion and I’ve always known I’m an artist at heart. The urge to create feels like a very special thing that I’ll always have and I’m so happy when my work finds homes with you all. Thank you for being here.