Sarah Ball was born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire and studied Illustration at Newport Art College. Subsequently she obtained a Master of Fine Arts from Bath Spa University. She moved to Wales in 1996 but since 2015 has been living near Penzance.

Her meticulously rendered portraits explore themes of gender and identity. Demonstrating an acute sensitivity to the psyche of her subjects, she emphasises physical characteristics that define how we outwardly portray ourselves to the world. Ball uses source material such as newspaper cuttings, archival photographs and social media to inform her portraits. Often depicting people who celebrate self-expression and contest traditional binary norms, Ball highlights physiognomy, hairstyles, clothes, jewellery and make-up that reveal the idiosyncrasies of her anonymous, often unknowing sitters. Set against flat planes of colour and confined within closely cropped compositions, the artist lends the people within her work a surreal, timeless quality by denying the viewer any form of narrative about their identity.

Sarah Ball is represented by the Stephen Friedman Gallery in London. Her work has been shown extensively in London and the USA.