Sasha Hartslief

(b. 1974 Gauteng, South Africa) 

Passionate about drawing from an early age, Sasha Hartslief is largely self-taught. Hartslief’s subjects are often viewed from a philosophical, deeply personal perspective, resulting in paintings that are emotionally charged, pensive in mood and considered in composition. Her subtle investigations into the human condition somehow strike a chord with us.

Hartslief uses brushstrokes to evoke the transience of light, colour and movement. And like her Renaissance and Impressionist forebears, she employs everyday visual devices to explore the way in which atmospheric light and tonal modulations inform a surface, and to evoke atmospheres fraught with symbolic subtexts. But the transience of the captured moment is counterbalanced by the disciplined rigour of Hartslief's technique and painterly process. She admits to being "obsessively skills-driven and consumed" by her work. Each image becomes a formal study in light, contour and line.

“In choosing my subject matter, I can become fascinated by something as inchoate as a mood, or specific as a visual concept,” says Hartslief. “In general, my ideas are more emotive and pictorial than intellectual. I never start out with an abstract idea and then try to attach an image to it, but sometimes I am haunted by a certain mood or visual concept, and I will explore it from many angles before it releases me.  Just as often, though, I have many disparate ideas for which the only common thread is that they all arise from a striking visual moment, which arrests my attention and demands to be painted.”

Hartslief explains further, “I try not to label myself as an impressionist, a realist or any such thing, although I believe a person's style of painting is as peculiarly their own as their manner of speech or the cast of their features. Similarly, I find myself deeply drawn to the works of many artists as demonstrations of uninhibited mastery, but I believe that no artist should focus exclusively on one particular medium or style of painting when looking for inspiration. When the painting is done, it is, in a sense, just as mysterious to me as anyone else, for it often contains allusions and cadences which I had never intended. People often ask me the meaning of my paintings, they want to know what a particular painting is "about", but I would never want to limit the viewer’s experience with anything as closed and final as an artist's intention or a particular narrative. Even though each painting depicts something objective, I feel that there is a mutable dimension buried in the light and mood which will strike each person differently, and that open element of interpretation is part of the joy of painting for me.”