Sarah Jacobs ’06, a contemporary maximalist and surrealist artist, forged her path in visual storytelling supported by Gettysburg College’s liberal arts and sciences curriculum. Today, she uses art to give back to the Adams County and Gettysburg community that nurtured her personal and professional development.
From separation to oneness, and complexity to simplicity, Sarah Jacobs ’06 explores questions of life and living through brushstrokes on her canvas. Through her art, Jacobs invites viewers to enter her paintings and discover worlds beyond their senses.
Raised in Littlestown, Pennsylvania, Jacobs’ career as a contemporary maximalist and surrealist artist started when she chose nearby Gettysburg College for its art history program. At Gettysburg, she quickly immersed herself in art, art history, and multidisciplinary courses across the College’s liberal arts and sciences curriculum.
“At Gettysburg, I took some philosophy classes and Eastern religions classes, which I found to be the most interesting for me,” she said. “The concepts I learned in those classes I’ve returned to in my paintings.”
She credits her advisor, Art and Art History Prof. Emerita Carol Small, for providing mentorship and support that helped her forge a professional path in art. “I remember meeting with her during her office hours, and we would talk about art, and she would constantly try to convince me to love Rococo,” she recalls with a laugh. “She was one of the first people I recall who wanted to have intellectual debates about art with me.”
She also acknowledges Gettysburg for providing a well-rounded education through co-curricular activities, such as the Peace Club and working at the Bullet Hole, where she encountered many individuals who make up the Gettysburg College community. “I think they all helped me to stay curious. It also gave me the confidence to do work for myself as an artist,” she said.
Bringing artistic ambitions back to Gettysburg
After graduating from Gettysburg, Jacobs received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree at the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 2010. Over the years, her artist residencies have taken her talents across the globe, from Grimma, Germany, and Cali, Colombia, to Taos, New Mexico.
Jacobs has received multiple art grants, including an Arts Council England Grant, and her artwork is held in public and private collections in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. She has also presented solo and two-person exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Erie, New York City, London, Poland, and Bristol, United Kingdom.
Following her time living abroad in the United Kingdom, Jacobs returned to the United States in 2014 and came home to Gettysburg in 2024. Four years ago, she began creating public art, while continuing to also make her canvas work.
Inside her studio space on North Washington Street, with a view looking down on Schmucker Hall on the Gettysburg College campus, Jacobs describes a mural she is working on that will ultimately be installed at Alloway Creek Elementary School in Littlestown. Figures of children that Jacobs has painted, representing the school’s students, appear so lifelike in the scenes that you almost expect them to step off the surface and into the studio with you.
In addition to the mural project in Littlestown, Jacobs is also working on a 25-by-40-foot mural that will be installed on the Gettysburg Beyond the Battle Museum this summer as part of Adams County’s commemorations for America’s 250th anniversary this year.
Exploring life through art
The uplifting humanistic mural projects complement and contrast her surrealist canvas works, inviting viewers to consider the complexities and joys of being alive.
“I believe I should have a lifelong education and look into fields that are completely unrelated to what I do, because it might change what I do or improve my artwork. That’s the foundation that you get at a liberal arts college.”
– Sarah Jacobs ’06
Jacobs’ paintings sometimes depict humans as natural elements—a man made from a sky or human legs depicted as mountains. Each work invites viewers to slow down, stop, and think about how the interplay of colors and patterns helps communicate a new perspective of the world.
“These works show the oneness of humans with the rest of our natural world,” she said.
Jacobs believes in the enduring power of a Gettysburg education to continually awaken the mind with knowledge and develop skills for a lifetime of growth.
“I believe I should have a lifelong education and look into fields that are completely unrelated to what I do, because it might change what I do or improve my artwork,” she said. “That’s the foundation that you get at a liberal arts college.”
Express your creativity as an art and art history major at Gettysburg.
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By Michael Vyskocil
Photos of artwork provided by Sarah Jacobs ’06
Posted: 04/23/26