Collinsville artist featured in Midwest Salute to Arts annual kickoff event

By Randy Pierce • Sarah Skiöld-Hanlin of Collinsville, who specializes in creating art through the medium category of drawing and printmaking, will be featured in the Midwest Salute to the Arts annual “kickoff” event in Fairview Heights on Thursday, July 23 (today), from 6 until 8 p.m. 

This event, being held at the City of Fairview Heights Recreation Room at 10025 Bunkum Road in Fairview Heights, and presented by the Associated Bank in that city, is designed to call attention to and generate interest in the annual Midwest Salute to the Arts scheduled for Friday evening, Aug. 28, then Saturday, Aug. 29, and Sunday, Aug. 30. 

This free-admission art fair is being held at Moody Park on Longacre Drive west of Illinois Route 159 in Fairview Heights and will feature close to 100 participants in a variety of categories who will be eligible for cash prizes plus there will be a special children’s “creation station,” food and drink, live entertainment and much more.

Skiöld-Hanlin, who shared her work at the Midwest Salute in 2024 and 2025, describes herself as “a passionate interdisciplinary academic, traveler and humanitarian while attempting to show this in her art that features “layered meanings, hidden imagery and fine details.”

Also saying “I love to challenge myself both in the medium and subject matter. The unforgiving nature of pen and ink forces me to commit to the page,” Skiöld-Hanlin adds, “Attempting to capture sound, motion and time in a static image breaks my brain a little every time I attempt it. And subjects like music, animals, storytelling and society are endless wells of inspiration.”

Her highly detailed drawings can be broadly placed into two categories: black and white animals and colorful expressive abstracts. To her, the desire to create both styles of work is a personal necessity on her journey to seek harmony.

  Skiöld-Hanlin began her geometry-based animal series on Post-It Notes during a short-lived gig as an overnight emergency medical technician in a steel mill, “I was in grad school at the time and quiet nights were good for everyone. Animals and ecology more generally allow me to integrate my spiritual and science-based worlds. I use geometry as the foundation to create images that portray the spiritual meaning and character of an animal while including aspects of their lifecycle, habitat, diet or place within the greater biosphere.”

Saying she began playing with this style of artwork in 2021 after attending a healing retreat for first responders and military service veterans, Skiöld-Hanlin explained that the experience opened her eyes to the possibility of feeling better from the traumas of her work and life in general including the passing of her brother in late 2022 which “left a huge hole in my life.”

Considering her sibling a friend, Skiöld-Hanlin cared for him the final six years of his life which helped, along with their late father, instill in her a passion for music while also encouraging her to “break out of my shell” and learn how to enjoy dancing. Working on an art piece provides an opportunity to keep those memories alive, something she is grateful for having as a means of staying connected with them.

Nearly all of her drawings are done with a set of “archival” ink pens of variable widths with her techniques enabling the use of clean lines and an appearance of “touchable” texture while adding what she calls “whimsy and intrigue.”

“There is always more to drawing. Just when you think you figured it out,” she commented, “something else appears.”

Her color pieces feature the utilization of saturation and blending with illustrative alcohol-based markers.

Her debut in the field of public art events began in 2023 in St. Louis then, after doing some other shows, she became one of the exhibitors at the annual Fairview Heights Midwest Salute to the Arts. Skiöld-Hanlin’s drawings and limited-edition reproductions can be found in private collections in Europe and across the United States.

Holding a masters in biological sciences from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Skiöld-Hanlin has a pair of bachelor’s degrees, in fine arts and anthropology, from Hofstra University in New York.