I am an artist, writer, editor, speaker and curator.
In my artwork and academic research I spotlight women, their struggles, and their ageing bodies.
In my paintings and drawings I borrow women from Master and Historic Biblical Paintings and place them in my life. Bathsheba is overwhelmed with household chores, The Virgin Mary is beset with hot flushes and parenting worries, and Lot's wife is anticipating bladder weakness.
In my PhD I analysed works by four women artists who took misogynistic biblical narratives and transformed them into feminist comics. My monograph is in progress. In my other writings, I research women’s autobiographical comics, with a special focus on the work of Jewish women.
You can read my CV here.
I completed an Art Foundation course at Central/St. Martins, attended The Slade School of Art for my BA and MFA and I have a PhD from University of Glasgow in women’s autobiographical comics. I was an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London (2018-2021). I am Faculty at The Royal Drawing School (RDS), London.
I am the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Will Eisner Award, The Susan Koppelman Prize, a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award, a South Atlantic MLA Book Award, A Hadassah Brandeis Institute Research Award (twice), The Principal’s Early Career Mobility Fund (University of Glasgow), The Slade Duveen Travel Award, The Slade Life Drawing Prize, UCL, The Slade Prize, UCL, The Coldstream Sessional Prize for Excellence, UCL, UCL Travel Grant, The Rothschild Foundation, The David Foundation, European Association for Jewish Culture, The Arts Humanities and Research Council, Association of Jewish Studies Contingent Faculty and Independent Scholar Grant, The Association for Jewish Studies Travel & Childcare Grant (twice) and The Stirling Maxwell Centre. I was awarded an Artist Residency at Dumfries House, Scotland, through RDS, during the summer of 2023, and the Moritz/Heyman Artist Residency in Borgo Pignano in Italy, through RDS, in Spring 2024.
My graphic novel, The Book of Sarah (Myriad Editions, Penn State University Press 2019) was shortlisted for the 2019 British Book Design & Production Award for Graphic Novels and the 2020 Communication Arts Illustration Award for Books. Both The Herald Scotland and PopMatters have listed The Book of Sarah as one of The Best Books of 2019. In 2021 True North Country Comics listed it as a Top 10 Graphic Novel.
I co-edited Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders (Syracuse University Press 2023) with Heike Bauer and Andrea Greenbaum, an innovative collection of essays, interviews, and artwork examining Jewish women’s comics. This volume was awarded the South Atlantic MLA Book Award (2024), and nominated for the Broken Frontier Best Book on Comics Award (2023). You can buy a copy here. Read wonderful reviews of this book on Graphic Medicine (Anita White), Contemporary Jewry (Matt Reingold) , European Comics Art (Dana Mihăilescu), Journal of Comics and Graphic Novels (Kalina Kupczynska).
I co-edited a Special Issue of Studies in Comics (Intellect 2022) edited with Isabelle Hesse, themed around Families and Conflict.
I edited Graphic Details: Jewish Women’s Confessional Comics in Essays and Interviews (McFarland 2014) the first ever book on Jewish women and comics. The collection was inspired by co-curating the touring exhibition “Graphic Details Confessional Comics by Jewish Women” that toured 9 museums over 6 years. My critically acclaimed book featured essays, interviews and artwork, and was the recipient of numerous awards: The Will Eisner Award for Best Academic Publication (2015), The Susan Koppelman Prize for Best Feminist Anthology in Feminist Studies in Popular and American Culture (2014), a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Honorable Mention- Jews and The Arts (2016) and Nominated for the Broken Frontier Best Book on Comics (2014).
My solo shows include “Sarah Lightman - Drawing from Life and Literature” at The Knapp Gallery, Regent’s University (2020), “The Book of Sarah” at Koppel Central, London (2019), “Sarah Lightman - Art and Film” Mother Egg Review Gallery (2018), “Sarah Lightman and Charlotte Salomon Artist Intervention” at Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths (2017), “Food, Family, Feelings” at Old Dominion University (2014), “The Book of Sarah”, at Occupy My Time, Deptford, London (2013) and “In Memoriam” at New Hall Art Collection, University of Cambridge (2009).
Groups shows include Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Online Exhibition 2023, Bell House in Dulwich Open House Festival 2023, Wells Art Contemporary 2022, Islington Arts Factory, The House of Illustration, Jewish Museum London, The Cartoon Museum London, Koppel Project Hive Gallery, Oranim College, King’s Place Gallery, The Collection, The Centre for Recent Drawing, Ben Uri Gallery London, Mall Galleries, The Jerwood Space, The Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, Ohio State University, Space Station Sixty Five, Jewish Museum Florida, Oregon Jewish Museum, Portland, The Washington DC JCC, Yeshiva University Museum, and Koffler Centre for The Arts.
My academic research focuses on women’s autobiographical comics. My PhD, and now monograph in progress, “Dressing Eve and Other Reparative in Women’s Autobiographical Comics”, is funded by two Research Awards from Hadassah Brandeis Institute and an Association of Jewish Studies Contingent Faculty and Independent Scholar Grant.
In the studio at Borgo Pignano Artist Residency (April 2024). Read about my residency here
“Through a delicate interweaving of images (ranging from the architectural, loose outlines, fractured repetitions and empty spaces) and text, the reader becomes immersed in this deeply considered reflection of gender and cultural identity. In its spirit of perpetual enquiry, it is an intensely Jewish book; but the questions it asks, about being and belonging, speak to the wider concerns of twenty-first century life.”
My art and writings have been published in Juno Magazine, Breathe Magazine, Royal Drawing School Blog, Megillat Ester (Izzun Books), Milk Art Journal, MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture, Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance, The Comics Journal, Beyond Maus: The Legacy of Holocaust Comics (Bohlau Verlag), The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, The Cincinnati Review, Studies in Comics, The International Journal of Comics Art, Disability Experiences (Layman Poupard Publishing), MAMSiE, Studies in in the Maternal, Mom Egg Review Literature and Art, Haaretz, Perspectives, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, The Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Renaissance, The Jewish Quarterly, The Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures (Routledge), Trauma, Narratives and Herstory (Palgrave Macmillan), 1001 Comics to Read before You Die (Cassel), The Unspeakable: Narratives of Trauma (Peter Lang), The Edinburgh Companion to Modern Jewish Fiction (Edinburgh University Press), and Critical Engagements. I co-edited "Contemporary Comics by Jewish Women", a Special Issue of Studies in Comics 6:2, with Andrea Greenbaum and Heike Bauer and "Centre Stage and on the Page - Women in Comics", a Special Issue of Studies in Comics 7:2, with Catriona MacLeod.
I am frequently a guest lecturer at museums, galleries, universities and podcasts where I speak about my artwork and research. Recent invitations include: University of Cambridge (2024, 2017), Maternal Journal Podcasts with Laura Godfrey-Isaacs, Lilith Magazine Live!, Leo Baeck Institute (London), Bar Ilan University, University of Maine (Augusta), Boston University, The Royal Drawing School, The Whitechapel Gallery, The Southbank Centre (Women of The World Festival), California College of The Arts, The Free Word Centre, The House of Illustration, University of Oxford, Edinburgh Jewish Literary Society, Goldsmiths College, McMaster University, University of Cincinnati, Penn State Medical School, Dickinson College, Mathrubhumi Literary Festival, Jewish Book Week London, University of Glasgow, University of Bochum, and Birkbeck College.
I have been invited as a Keynote Speaker at conferences and events including The English and Foreign Languages University Hyderabad, India (2025), Miles Nadal JCC Toronto (2025), Davar Bristol (2022), University of Cincinnati/Mayerson JCC (2021), University of Brighton (2020) University of Sussex (2020), Ruhr-University Bochum (2019), University of Winchester (2019), Bangor University (2017) and Old Dominium University (2014).
I am a Faculty member at The Royal Drawing School, where I teach Drawing Graphic Narratives, Graphic Narratives, Graphic Narratives 2, and Graphic Narratives: The Art of Motherhood. I have taught comics studies, and guest lectured at undergraduate and graduate level at Middlesex University (2021-2), University of Roehampton (2020, 2018, 2012, 2011), University of Glasgow (2018 and 2011-12) and London College of Communications (2017). I have taught “Feminist Art History” at The Art Academy, London (2019) and The Richmond School of Painting (2018). I have led comics workshops at the Scottish Limmud (2019), Jewish Museum, London (2018), Glasgow Jewish Book Week (2018), JW3, the Jewish Community Centre for London (2012, 2013) and Koffler Centre for the Arts, Toronto (2011).
My artwork, writings and exhibitions have been featured in many print and online publications, as well as podcasts, including: Jewish Women’s Archive by Rachael Davis, Panel Borders by Alex Fitch, New Book Networks, Memory Spaces Visualizing Identity in Jewish Women's Graphic Narratives by Victoria Aarons, Compassionate Comics: Unflattening Scholarship with (Auto)Graphic Research by Maureen Burdock, The Bible and Comics: Women, Power and Representation in Graphic Narratives by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, Creating Comics: A Writer's and Artist's Guide and Anthology by Chris Gavaler and Leigh Ann Beavers, Jewish Comics and Graphic Narratives: A Critical Guide by Matt Reingold, Re-envisioning Jewish Identities: Reflections on Contemporary Culture in Israel and the Diaspora by Efraim Sicher, Inking Woman: 250 Years of Women Cartoon and Comic Artists in Britain, by Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate, UK Feminist Cartoons and Comics: A Critical Survey, by Nicola Streeten, Reading Jewish Fiction (Ariel Kahn), The Washington Post, The Jewish Chronicle by Julia Weiner, The Jewish Chronicle by Ariel Kahn, Literature and Belief by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, The Jewish Quarterly by Nadia Valman, Rachel Garfield, PopMatters by Chris Gavaler, Jewish Journal by Kylie Ora Lobell, The Herald by Teddie Jamieson, Upper Wimpole Street Salon by Julia Weiner, Paul Gravett.com, IABA Students and New Scholars Network by Olga Michael, Broken Frontier by Andy Oliver, Jewthink by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, Bitches on Comics, Resonance FM, Turnaround, Barely South Review, and Closure by Kalina Kupczynska.