Sarah McKenzie was born in Connecticut in 1971 and grew up in New Jersey. The daughter of a land use planner, it is probably not coincidental that she would make paintings about development and construction as an adult. McKenzie received her BA in film studies from Yale University and her MFA in painting from the University of Michigan. After graduate school, she taught painting and drawing at the college level for eight years, including five years as a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. In 2006, she left her teaching position to pursue her studio work full-time.

McKenzie was the 2006 First-Place Winner of the National Young Painters Competition, hosted by Miami University. Her paintings have appeared in Art in America, New American Paintings, Dwell, Landscape Architecture, The Miami Herald, The Denver Post, and The New York Times online. McKenzie's NYC debut solo exhibition, Building Code, opened at Jen Bekman Gallery in February 2009. Her work is also included in the group exhibition Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes, which originated at the Walker Art Center in February 2008, and will travel to the Yale School of Architecture in March 2009.

She lives in Colorado with her husband and two children.