EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
Sarah Leahy
I am a painter, I observe the ordinary moments around us that can be quite beautiful. My work emotes a quiet luminosity and tactile presence, capturing people, places and the light within. I move forward intuitively, finding my way, to place myself, locate meaning and offer that to the viewer as well.
I am interested in the presence a painted image can have. How it can cause you to pause, as you slow down and move close to look, feel it’s emotional undercurrent and experience its actual physicality.
Currently I am making multi-panel paintings which are installed side by side and read together. The work is non-narrative, the imagery compounds like verses in a poem, the poetic compression creating a vivid and affecting presence. The images are neither sentimental nor voyeuristic. They are straightforward, presenting a particular moment to experience. This invites the viewer to appreciate their own individual context and response.
A painting begins with a sense of its physicality, an intangible presence I want to realize, bringing an image into this space, with volume, light and texture. The images in my paintings are sourced from my own photographs. I transform those photographs through a unique process I have developed of painting black India ink onto the front surface of sanded plexiglass. The gradual process of making my paintings allows me to give a painterly body to the image, articulating a subtle materiality and creating a concentrated luminous presence. I want to create a surface and image so compelling that it draws the viewer in, immersing them in the moment and inviting their close attention.
When I first moved to New York, I sought materials that could convey the presence of light and air, and a medium that would dry quickly. I chose clear acrylic glass and developed the unique process I use today of painting with black India ink onto the front of the sanded surface. To work more directly with the plexiglass and have no autographic marks, I eliminated brushes in favor of my hands, sandpaper, and paper towels saturated with ink. With these materials, I create the image by painting multiple layers of delicate ink washes slowly building soft grays and deep blacks, while alternately removing areas of ink with sandpaper to yield a luminous white. Darker areas are the accumulation of ink while lighter areas are sanded out, allowing you to view the wall surface through the translucent glass. The plexiglass holds refracted light within each pane, bringing about a mysteriously layered presence. The paintings embody a huge compression of time and attention. The simple materiality of the work; ink made of carbon soot and water, plexiglass made of extruded acrylic, steel screws or nails (to hang), contrasts and heightens the atmospheric effect.
In the fundamental act of looking there is a connection.
