In Birns’ first solo show in the United Kingdom angels glide in celestial realms of eternal sunshine and household pets play fight their tiny, impeccant contests down below. Birns, fuelled by the words of Dolly Parton ‘you gotta work to get to heaven,’ asks us where and how do we find our Heaven

Picasso famously asked, when painting a face, whether the artist looked on, inside or behind it. Birns asks the very same questions, however, rather than let her faces issue Picasso’s simultaneity of time, space, and form, she moulds her figure into a decipherable model and empowers the electricity of its estrangement with her viewer through its legibility. Birns’ painting craft monsters not from the unknown but from the known, not ethereal but in fact adamantly of this earth. The scars of their creation induce fear and pity in equal measure, much in the same way that Birns’ faces make you stop, stare, sometimes giggle and sometimes prickle with panic.

Comprised of five canvases and two works on paper, Birns’ ‘Scene’ seeks to reveal that whatever your religious, spiritual, humanist or material perspective on life are, one thing almost everyone believes in is that to be able to enjoy a life of light and love, you must work hard to get there.

Scene IV: Sara Birns, It Takes Hard Work to Get to Heaven presented new work by American painter Sara Birns at Matt Carey-Williams’ studio space at 12 Porchester Place, London, W2 2BS.