Sarah Hadley: Story Lines
Story Lines is a series of intimate, cinematic narratives that blur the boundaries between reality and fiction. Inspired by French New Wave cinema, particularly Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7, the project explores the tension between external beauty and internal psychological complexity against the backdrop of the 1960s and women’s changing roles in society.
French New Wave filmmakers brought a feminist lens to storytelling, revealing the inner lives of strong, independent women who navigated their world with elegance and tenacity. They celebrated newfound autonomy while confronting the lingering constraints of patriarchy.
In this series, I create layered, dreamlike film stills that imagine the interior worlds of women who were redefining their place in society. Mysterious male presences serve as reminders of the lingering patriarchy. By isolating female figures in surreal landscapes illuminated by dramatic light and shadow, the work reflects this search for autonomy and identity within a shifting cultural landscape.
What I Remember
Crossing Paris
Boy Butterfly
Chance Encounter
Climbing Mountains
Escape
Interior Staircase
Italian Street Reflection
Looking for Answers
Moonrise
Paris Story
Turning from the Light
Ghosts
Holding On, Letting Go
Bio
Sarah Hadley is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist working with photography, collage, and painting. Her work explores the intersection of female identity, memory, and history. Through layered, narrative imagery, she invites viewers into surreal and mysterious worlds where time and space are fluid.
Hadley received degrees in art history and Italian from Georgetown University and photography from the Corcoran College/George Washington University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Loyola Museum of Art (Chicago), the Griffin Museum of Photography (Boston), the Richard Levy Gallery (Albuquerque), Afterimage Gallery (Dallas), and the dnj Gallery (Santa Monica). Her work has been shown in festivals and art fairs in Italy, France, Portugal, China, Argentina, India, and Australia, and her photographs have been featured in many publications including: Elle Italia, Harper’s, Le Monde, L’Oeil de la Photographie, Lenscratch.com, and B+W Magazine. In 2024, Hadley was interviewed by Mountain Lake PBS about her work in the Hyde Collection.
Hadley has received grants from the California Center for Cultural Innovation and the Illinois Arts Council and is the founder of the Filter Photo Festival in Chicago in 2009. Her first monograph “Lost Venice” was published by Damiani Editore in 2020 and is in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Getty Research Center, the Huntington Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Hadley’s work is held in museums, corporate & private collections.