Sarah HaBa

My paintings are a built emotional refraction of space — the space that is the shadowed weight that holds an object to a surface, the space that is the sea, the air, the trees, the space in-between my breaths, the space in-between my brushstrokes — all of which overflow with emotion. None of my world is bare-bones.

I build my paintings with shadows. In this way, the white of the paper is activated as light.
The light destroys the form. It is in this visible space of destruction that emotion is conveyed.
The visual weight of an object’s shadow transforms into emotional weight through the lens
of the viewer’s gaze.

My work is composed through intuition. Whether still life or landscape, the placement of the subject, the tilt of the compositional plane, the repetition of color and reflection of form, are all taken from my own emotional temperature. Watercolor is a negotiation between air and water — I keep the drying time of my paper, my palette, and my brushes always on my mind.
My brushstrokes are careful to pause the viewer’s mind or loose to move the viewer’s eye.
Color is used as local color in one area and shadow in another. My palette is always a mess.

Through paint, water, and patience, my paintings become an external product of an internal process, shoved out into the world, my explanation of life.