Sab Curtis is an acrylic landscape artist, an aspiring writer and an adventure enthusiast. Her affinity for the outdoors and deep respect for the natural world stem from a life of exploring mountainous terrain around the world, including her own backyard in the Kootenays where she has found inspiration for the past 20 years. Observing nature’s paths and patterns helps Sab better understand herself and her art and writing translate what she discovers through her wanders.

While Sab has always dabbled with words, painting became her unexpected silver lining while recovering from a traumatic brain injury. In 2020, Sab put brush to canvas for the first time in her life as a therapeutic outlet and she has not stopped since. An engineer by profession, she has converted her problem-solving skills to her creative practice through cognitive “rewiring”. Her art practice began as a way to feel nurtured by nature’s magnificence when she was experiencing physical and cognitive limits due to injury, and her evolving creative process has helped her comprehend the unplanned pivot in her life.

Sab has been building a collection of original artwork and written word that expresses her journey through brain injury recovery and discovering her creative self. Sab’s time in residence combined both her literary and visual artist skills to further explore and articulate that journey. Her content raises conviction that the ability to adapt through any kind of adversity is within us, and that creativity and connections with others can play a powerful role in that.

Sab is the 2024 recipient of the Nelson and District Arts Council sponsored residency.https://ndac.ca/programs/the-narrows-artist-residency/