Sara Sisun is a visual artist based in Boulder, Colorado. She holds a BA in Art Practice from Stanford University, an MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute under a full tuition fellowship, and an MA in Art History from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant and the Alpine Fellowship. Her paintings are included in the public collections of Kaiser Permanente and in the private collection of Soledad O’Brien.
Sisun currently teaches as Head of Foundations and Fine Arts at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. Her achievements continue to be recognized: in 2025 she received an award at the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern in Barcelona, and in both 2025 and 2026 her work was included in the New Salem Museum of Art.
Sisun has also been working from recent photoshoots with her sister and her sister’s husband. Her sister modeled for her painting American Bride, and Sisun is now excited to develop several new figurative compositions loosely inspired by Manet.
Sisun recently shared the news that she has been selected for an October residency with Will Cotton at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. She describes the honor with characteristic warmth, looking forward to the focused time, dialogue, and experimentation the residency will make possible.
This fall, Sisun will teach a two-part online workshop with Winslow Art Center on Mary Cassatt, examining her paintings and prints through questions of intimacy, modern life, motherhood, looking, and psychological space. While Cassatt is often discussed in relation to Impressionism, Sisun is particularly interested in the tension in her work between tenderness, structure, observation, and formal invention.
In Winter 2027, she will teach Still Life Painting Through Art History with Penn Studio School. The course will use still life as a way of moving through art history, exploring how artists have used objects to think about mortality, beauty, domestic life, symbolism, composition, and the act of looking itself.
Sisun is also opening a small-format critique and mentorship group for painters of all levels who want sustained feedback, accountability, and a deeper conversation around developing a personal voice. Meeting monthly, the group will discuss works in progress, technical questions, composition, influences, materials, and longer-term studio direction — designed for painters seeking thoughtful critique and community while building momentum over time.
For Sisun, the summer brought together travel, research, teaching, and new studio questions in ways that feel increasingly interwoven. It has been a season of looking, gathering, and thinking — and she is very much looking forward to a more consolidated period this fall, when these ideas can return to the studio and take shape.
Her work and full studio details are available at www.sarasisun.net. For inquiries, she can be reached at sara.sisun@gmail.com.
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