fire1_ Painting

Sarita was born in the small South African town of Oudtshoorn in 1967. Sarita’s work can be best described as abstract expressionism and she draws inspiration from painters like Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Mark Rothko when producing her large-format artworks. She mainly works with enamel on canvas as she enjoys the unrestrained characteristic of the medium as well as the physical movement required to produce pieces of this size and nature. Colour and spontaneity play key roles when producing her artworks as Sarita much prefers chaos and experimentation to control and tradition. "Since I can remember I’ve been intrigued by abstract art and how it has the ability to escape reality and exist entirely on its own. I love the way that an abstract artwork can boldly proclaim: 'this is what I look like and you must get use to it!' Over the years, understanding this abstract language has become easy and natural for me. I prefer working with enamel as a medium. I love the surprise element this impulsive medium serves up every time I work with it. Enamel moves fast when applied to the canvas and eventually becomes hard when dry, which gives a mesmerizing high-gloss quality to an artwork. I never know where a painting comes from when I start - it takes on a life of its own as soon as I start working and moving around the canvas. I've never been able to sit still behind an easel so I prefer the spontaneous and unrestricted characteristics of action painting as it feels like I'm dancing and ultimately letting go of whatever is cluttering my mind at that stage in time. My work ultimately doesn’t ‘mean’ anything and it's not necessary to understand it, but to simply fall in love with it."