For all inquires email saskia.fleishman@gmail.com
Instagram: @flesh___man
Saskia Fleishman (B. 1995, Baltimore, MD), graduated Rhode Island School of Design in 2017 with a B.F.A. in painting. She has been an artist in residence at The Jentel Foundation, Tongue River Artist Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Wassaic Project, PADA Studios, ChaNorth and Trestle Studios, and a curator in residence at Otis College of Art and Design. Saskia’s work has been exhibited at Galleri Urbane in Dallas, TX, Red Arrow in Nashville, TN, Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, Dinner Gallery in New York, NY, Unit London in the UK, Goucher College in Baltimore, MD, and The Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, VA, among others. Her work has been featured in Make Magazine, ArtMaze, Root Quarterly, Friend of the Artists, and Galerie Magazine. Saskia is based in Philadelphia, PA.
These paintings offer a metaphysical connection to the world by preserving the spirit of the landscape where I am from and other natural places I have spent time in. I grew up in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay where my father was a landscape architect, my grandmother a landscape photographer, and my grandfather a wetland scientist. In recent years it has become clear, the tidewater landscape I call home is slowly disappearing because of the bay's rising sea level eroding the land.
This work ties our ephemeral landscapes to my fascination with the complexities of our existence. The work often depict sunsets, full moons, or sunrises; transitory times of day that highlight our fleeting nature, but are perpetual, and invite meditation. Beaches, wetlands, mountain ranges, high plains, deserts and wooded areas where I have felt the comfort and vast mystery nature holds, are sources for inspiration.
The paintings begin with out-of-focus snapshots I have taken of these places, that are digitally printed on transparent chiffon and stretched on bars. The prints are then overlaid with opaque flat masked airbrushed gradients and thick acrylic paint mixed with sand that I have collected from landscapes. The sand and paint mixture articulates the clouds, water, land, and vegetation in each work. Finally, a layer of thin paint is directionally airbrushed over the textural areas, to create an illusion of light and shadow.
In each work, the printed photographs are visible within cut-out geometric shapes and patterns that represent the sensitivity, wonder and liminality I have felt in these places. The transparent forms create metaphorical portals to se e through the veil of our temporal world, into possibilities beyond our own. These paintings honor the transient nature of life while acknowledging the eternal relationship we have to the universe, in hopes of finding transcendence and harmony.