Irvin is an MFA Candidate in Painting at George Mason University with an expected graduation date of May 2016. As a visual artist, she has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the New Waves Exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions in spaces such as the Atlanta Botanical Garden, The Page Bond Gallery and The Workhouse Arts Center. She is included in collections such as the Federal Reserve Bank, Capital One, The University of Richmond, Try-Me Urban Restoration Project and the Center for Gifted Studies at Western Kentucky University.

About her “Ink Series,” Sarah Irvin said:

In this series, I am reflecting on the life of my paternal Grandfather, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. After creating very specific work about his life and passions, I set about to create a more generalized series about memory loss and the loss of language. In this work, I write cursive text onto non-absorbent paper with ink and then use a squeegee to destroy the marks I have created. The ink spreads across surface into a new composition. The resulting marks are the remnant of a written word, but the meaning has been confused and hidden. I am exploring a visual representation of thought while contemplating the limits of words as signifiers. In the current work, I have focused on hidden text as a representation of memory, the abilities and limitations of the mind and the simultaneous power and shortcomings of language. By using black ink, the result of the mark making visually references x-ray, ultrasound or the readout from a seismometer. I’m interested in these representations of monitoring something internal and creating a visual representation of something hidden or unseen.