"Map of the Soul" Painting

Paula Saslow is a contemporary abstract artist living and working in Palo Alto, California. My creative journey has never followed a straight line. It began with literature, film, and photography before circling back to my childhood passion: painting. Each shift of medium was not a departure but an expansion, a different way of pursuing the same need for expression and storytelling. Painting now gathers these threads into a single visual language. Growing up in Buenos Aires, I absorbed the marks, gestures, and rhythms of urban iconography while also watching my father draft architectural blueprints. These influences—spontaneous play and disciplined design—collide on my canvases, where cinematic echoes from my film background surface in storyboard-like sequences, dramatic contrasts, and layered fragments that recall film stills. I draw inspiration from artists such as Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet, whose gestural intensity informs my own approach to layering, movement, and rhythm. My paintings explore the tension between order and chaos, harmony and fracture, quiet and noise—each surface functioning as both construction and excavation. Since devoting myself fully to painting, I have exhibited at Pacific Art League (Honorable Mention) and Arc Gallery, and contributed to public art projects such as Ode to Palo Alto, a downtown mural. I also embrace commissions as opportunities for dialogue, translating personal memories into layered visual compositions. Ultimately, my work creates spaces of dissonant beauty—imperfect yet balanced, playful yet architectural—inviting viewers to rediscover overlooked beauty within the everyday.