Sarah Svetlana is an abstract painter who explores the
fragmentation of the subject in an ongoing search for a home. Her paintings
attempt to reconcile her upbringing in the irreconcilable cultures of the Soviet
Belarus and Immigrant America by drawing roadmaps between two worlds.
A refugee child from the Soviet Union, Svetlana grew up in
Los Angeles. Her constant search for identity drives her to create. Always
observing and noticing the smallest detail within a detail, her paintings do
not only suggest hectic movement, but the stillness locked in each gesture of
that movement.
Her work is “rooted somewhere between the insanity of Wassily
Kandinsky and the line-certainty of the early 20th century Futurists.” Each
painting is a piece of the complex topography that defines both her identity
and her work. Through the narratives created by a methodical application of
color, she delivers an invocation of home - spectral and surreal, but familiar
at the same time.
For Svetlana, “Perfection is boring. The colors I
chose are inspired by my childhood. The bright palette and shapes soothe my
soul, and each line, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is a vital
moment, an emotion, suspended in time.”
