About
Anastacia Sadeh’s current work explores the ongoing relationship between self awareness, emotional and somatic authenticity, and mental health. Her works are records of often fleeting emotions built through layers of water-based media and manipulated Venetian plaster. She uses both purely abstract marks as well figurative elements in her work to express her interests. Her work uses a multi-step process to symbolically suggest the mental practice of self-awareness. Her first step is create a surface texture that represents specific generationally borrowed methodologies. She creates the textures by making impressions with various fabrics that hold personal importance. She also uses tools to draw into the plaster while it is still damp at times. These surface modifications symbolically acknowledge the rippling effects that the 'fabric' of generational trauma and other pre-conditioned methodologies have on self-identity. The second step within the process of her work involves creating painted marks that involve the element of accident and forces outside her direct control (like gravity and directed air flow). This carthartic step elicits the peace in letting go of what we cannot control. It also references the commom human experience of reactive emotions. Emotions that are experienced but not consciously chosen. The last step is to represent the process of self-awareness through the power of choice. The previous painted marks are used to create the new whole. Some are covered with new colors while some guide the whole of the work's composition. It is the last step in representing the unique human ability to respond to our emotions rather than simple react to them. Her work explores and celebrates human complexity. The potential for mental healing through emotional authenticity and self-awareness are themes within all her work. Her current preference is to work on either stretched canvas or cradled wood panels as these readily support the application of layered paint and plaster.
Statement
My current work explores the transient and complex nature of human emotions as they relate to the importance of mental health and wellness. My work is a thoughtfully explored collection of abstracted portraits of various emotions as they move through their fragile and often fleeting existence. It is an exploratory record of the felt, but unseen.
My personal reflections (both conscious and subconscious) are built through literal layers of paint and plaster as a record of the temporal nature of human emotions. I begin the foundational layers of my works with an ironic sense of purposeful accident by allowing for my chosen medium to move without my immediate influence. Using gravity and air to guide the patterns of the paint, I create the compositional skeleton of each piece upon which the entire work is then based. This step represents my acknowledgment that much of our circumstances and our resulting emotions cannot be chosen or controlled. I then use these loosely guided marks to begin my finished work in the same way I have learned to sit with any number of unchosen emotions before I intentionally decide my response to them. This process of gradually gained control is a therapeutic nod to the power of acceptance and sanctuary of spiritual faith.
My compositions are usually a combination of these accidental and subsequent deliberate marks and colors; however, I sometimes include representations of recognizable objects. These representations serve a personal and instructional role that convey a concrete thought about which I am curious. However I decide to make the compositions unfold, it is the act of creating multiple layers that serve as my most loved visual objective. This process is a recurring theme in my pieces. It reflects how choices in life build upon themselves to create the whole. As far as mediums, I primarily use acrylics and other water based mediums over a foundation of manipulated Venetian plaster. The plaster represents the emotional ‘skin’ of a person and/or myself. Sometimes I sand the plaster to a smooth surface to represent the nature of innocence. At other times, I manipulate it into various textures using fabric to acknowledge the connection that the fabric of our pasts has on the emotions of our present.
The ironic nature of control and how it is gained emotionally is woven through each of my works. It presents itself both boldly and quietly to reflect how control presents itself both subconsciously as well as directly throughout the duration of emotional processing. It is something I encounter as a constant and therefore it is layered into to each piece. In some works, the branch like marks (made by the process of chance mentioned above) work in harmony with the whole of the work, but in others these same foundational marks are obliterated as the emotion being dealt with at the time of the work struggles with accepting the nature of control in its entirety. My intuitive color choices and abstract mark marking serve as a conduit for my current emotions as I experience them. I seek to gather a deeper awareness of my emotions' existence, as well as to capture their transient nature and fleeting lifespan. It is through this construct I choose to honor the importance of mental health and wellness.
© 2021 Sadeh Studio Arts
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