This group of Vanitas paintings explore the relationship between the material and the spiritual through the use of symbolic objects. Traditionally this genre was used in history for meditation on mortality, materiality, and meaning.
In these works, I have contrasted antique and contemporary objects for the same end: to provide opportunity for contemplation on cycles of life alongside questions of mortality, ethics, and balance between intellectual or material pursuits.
I see painting as a meditation: an exploration of relationships I encounter through observation and experience. I find greatest inspiration working from nature; considering innate dualities as they move through varied passages of color, meaning, and form. The resulting images reflect the search for meaning as a journey through the fluidity of perception, the passing of time, and the structure of change.
Saskia is a painter and curator from New Orleans, LA. Her exhibition record spans three decades and includes regional, national, and international venues.
Saskia is a painter and curator from New Orleans, LA. Her exhibition record spans three decades and includes regional, national, and international venues. She is the Principal/Founder of the Fine Arts Preservation Society of New Orleans and the Founding Curator and Vice President of the 501c-3 non-profit organization, The Ozols Collection: A Museum of American Painting and Pedagogy; the mission promotes the advancement of the Fine Arts as a vital learning tool that promotes intercultural discourse with a foundation in classical techniques and conversations.
Saskia has taught at Boston University, Tulane University, Loyola University, and other Colleges. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in cities including New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, Russia. Her area of focus in research is Realism in visual art with its contemporary intersections.
She holds an MFA from the Museum School of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and trained with painters including Sidney Goodman, Bo Bartlett, Vincent Desiderio, Nelson Shenks, Bruce Samuelson, Auseklis Ozols, and others through the direct artistic lineage of Thomas Eakins.
Research as an independent curator includes a two-year project at the Louisiana State Archives in Baton Rouge as Curator of Fine Arts for the exhibition 40 Days and 40 Nights, Exploring the Resiliency of Louisiana's Visual Artists After Katrina; as Chief Curator for Winter Sun, Multi-Media Exhibition at Café Russe of the Ritz- Carlton in Moscow, Russia, 2015, and as Chief Curator and Juror for Persephone's Garden, Images Inspired by Femininity and Its Transformative Creative Power. Her Most recent project was as Chief Curator for Responsorial: the Contemporary Dialectics of Misogyny at New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.
Publications authored include Realism, Classicism, and the Feminist Voice," chosen for publication in the conference proceedings of the 2012 Representational Art Conference of 2012; regular contributions to the New Orleans Art Review from 2005-2008. And Art Voices Magazine from 2007-2008. Recent publications and presentations include the Representational Art Conference and Figurative Art Convention in Miami, where she presented "Contrapposto and the Techctonics of Gender, "and the London Center for Interdisciplinary Studies' conference on Slavonic and East European Studies, where she presented "Beyond the Path of the Peredvishniki, Exploring Intersections in Manner, Means, and Method between Russian and American Realist Painting."
Saskia is currently curating an exhibit for the Renegade Artist's Collective, organizing classes for the Fine Arts Preservation Society of New Orleans, and organizing archiving and research projects for The Ozols Collection. She is also midway through a new series of paintings.