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 suburbia 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. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two children.

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, and the Denver Post. Exhibitions include the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the Bemis Center, the University of Akron, and the Katonah Museum of Art. McKenzie's work is currently on view in the exhibition "Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes" at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and in the exhibition "This Modern World" at the General Electric World Headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut.