Gayle Sachs

I'm a South African born, Melbourne based professional artist using oil and mixed media on canvas for my abstract paintings.
My interest began as simple enjoyment, followed by tertiary studies of fine art at the University of Cape Town, apprenticeship with South African painter, Michael Pettit, and studies at New York's Art Students' League with abstract expressionist Rudolph Baranik in the 1990's
Working has become a meditation into expressing that which is unseen, unspoken, unheard - bridging the space between language and lived experience.
Ambiguities in perspective and fore/background dispel absolute interpretations, allowing for a non linear fluidity of meaning and allusion toward ever further paths of interpretation.
In the last two years I've started using materials that relate to ideas of identity and self-protection; innately difficult to pin down to canvas, the additional material creates an inherent surface tension to accentuate the complexity in articulating truth.

I create art because...

it's my way of expressing what's indefinable about me. Painting is a space where I can withdraw into instinct, switching off from a frenetic world into one where I can balance choice-making and trust, and where I can have fun.

I am different to most artists because...

I don't have any premeditated idea about how a painting will turn out.

When you look at my art, the thing I want you to feel is...

whatever you feel. Either a painting resonates with you or it doesn't. It's like meeting a person - one can use reason to understand and appreciate someone, but a heartfelt response is less about intellect and more about feeling an intangible connection.

I believe art is an important part of our lives because...

like all cultural art forms, art offers us an invitation to perceive the world through someone else's experience. It's something that connects us to others by enriching our appreciation of the breadth of others' interpretations.

The thing I most want to say to non-artists is...

the style in which I work developed over three decades. I studied fine art but it was only through continuing to play and have fun with the medium that I began to see continuity in my work.