Gratitude

Ink on Paper

90”x58”

In Gratitude, Sara Rice renders the intangible with obsessive clarity. What appears at first as an expansive terrain—perhaps an aerial landscape, a shifting seascape, or magnified skin—gradually reveals itself as something less literal and more sensory. Composed entirely of hand-drawn ink lines, the work breathes with quiet intensity, each mark an act of presence, discipline, and release.

Rice’s drawing practice, rooted in repetition and endurance, is both meditative and corporeal. The undulating textures of Gratitude feel alive, vibrating with an internal rhythm that mirrors natural forces—tides, wind, erosion, even breath. Yet the work never lapses into chaos. Instead, it balances control and surrender, offering a visual meditation on the complexity of simplicity. There is a generosity in her process, an offering of time and attention that transforms the surface into something devotional.

With Gratitude, Rice does not depict gratitude as a concept, but rather performs it—each line a gesture of awareness, a record of presence. The result is a work that exists somewhere between drawing, ritual, and topography—a contemplative field that invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and consider the depth that emerges through repetition.