Sarah Hardesty

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Artist Statement

My work includes drawings, paintings, installation, and mixed media. I combine a personal layering of time, history of location, and the power of the unseen – such as intention or the forces of nature. Often beginning with an intuitive response to and interpretation of my experiences, the work unfolds as a more focused expression revealed through the process. In some work, thin lines pull weighted and grounded masses and attempt to shift a situation. They represent the strength and the effect of many. Wide and blurry brush strokes cover abstracted environments of deconstruction and memory of place. This abstracted narrative derives from deeper thoughts of weightlessness, control, fear, safety and holding back/letting go. I am working with process and sensation to suggest both an elegance and a rawness. There is a visceral accessibility to my work, and I think it transcends deep emotion and experience into a rhythmical and poetic space. Some recent pieces interweave geological structural shifts (erosion, plate tectonics) with aspects of the human experience such as strength, resilience, and change. Combining geological imagery with textures, patterns, and other visual elements creates a platform to align what is happening on earth with what is happening with individual experience. My work also pulls from a range of personal content including a near death illness and recovery, pain, notions of beauty, scarring, sense of place and home. I intend to connect to core feelings within others of pain, healing, beauty, and the complex emotional, psychological and physical landscape that makes up all of our lives.

www.sarahhardesty.com