Sarah Rae Franklin is a Portland-based, award-winning, multidisciplinary artist focusing her practice on animation, illustration, and creative writing. She was born and raised in the rural Puget Sound area before moving to Portland to pursue a degree in animation at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). Franklin had her first solo show at the Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network (BARN) in 2018 and has been featured in several other shows throughout the Pacific Northwest, including a recent show with Portland’5 Culture & Community. Her animated work has been screened at multiple film festivals in and out of the United States, most notably by Portland Art Museum’s Center for an Untold Tomorrow and Portland Panorama.
Franklin is compelled by the intimacy of the taboo, desire, and trauma. How they, along with many other facets of the human experience, can be explored through storytelling. She depicts these subjects in her cartoony and gestural art style, creating a playful dialogue with the subjects she addresses. Her film Lone Buck Motel is a love letter to 80’s queer monster movies. Her latest film, Once, a Second Time, harnesses the imagery of the salmon to explore improved depictions of recovering from the trauma of a suicide attempt in film. Franklin harnesses both levity and grimness and integrates them to get at the undiscussed truths of life. She creates windows into difficult subjects for her audiences, expanding understanding of underrepresented subject matters for a greater audience.
Sarah Rae Franklin 