Sara Hay was born in Hayling Island in 1951. She spent much of her childhood delighting in nature.

Her need to paint, to find herself through painting, resulted from the years she spent as a shepherd in the mountains of Scotland and on the chalk downlands in Wiltshire. Her landscapes at this time were largely influenced by the work of Paul Nash and Ivon Hitchings. 

In 1980 her career took off, initially as a decorative painter. Her success in this field took her to London, New York and many capital cities, but this stylised compromise failed to satisfy her need for self-expression.

Recognising a need to develop her skills, she began studying the Flemish masters and recreating intricate and rich still lifes, a genre demanding discipline and method.

Then, in 1997, Sara Hay broke away from all pastiche, and embarked on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery, launching into Surrealist automatism, the belief that the unconscious can dictate the work of art without the intervention of a preconceived notion or the imposition of an aesthetic doctrine. 

For the last twelve years Sara has lived and worked in the peace and tranquility of rural Southern Turkey with her husband Chris Allan.  Her work can be found on walls around the world from New York to Copenhagen, Berlin, Mallorca and London.

She has now returned home to England and is searching for her next studio in which to complete the 10th series of her extraordinary work.