SASHA HARTSLIEF
(b. 1974 Gauteng, South Africa) 

Sasha Hartslief was born in 1974 in Gauteng. At the age of seventeen, she came to Cape Town to study English and Philosophy at UCT. Passionate about drawing from an early age, she is largely self-taught, closely observing other artists and avidly reading up on technique.    

Hartslief had always been passionate about drawing, but the desire to become an artist only crystallized into a decision in 1995, when she enrolled at Cape College under the tutelage of Elizabeth Gunter. Her subjects are often viewed from a philosophical, deeply personal perspective, resulting in striking works that are emotionally charged, pensive in mood and considered in composition. Her subtle investigations into the human condition via the underbelly of Cape Town life somehow strike a chord with us.

"I defer to the classical Masters for inspiration," says Sasha Hartslief, who admits to placing images painted by the 19^th century American Impressionist, John Singer Sargent, next to  her easel while she paints. Her muses include the 19^th century neo-classicist, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, whose draughtsmanship and linear dexterity provide formal inspiration for her works. But Hartslief's brushstrokes are more diffuse than the precise, stylized techniques of the neo-classicists. Like the 19^th century French Impressionists, she uses brushstrokes to evoke the transience of light, colour and movement. And like her Renaissance and Impressionist forebears, she employs everyday visual devices to explore the way in which atmospheric light and tonal modulations inform a surface, and to evoke atmospheres fraught with symbolic subtexts. But the transience of the captured moment is counterbalanced by the disciplined rigour of Hartslief's technique and painterly process. She admits to being "obsessively skills-driven and consumed" by her work. Each image becomes a formal study in light, contour and line.

Hartslief's experimentation with chiaroscuro techniques derives inspiration from the works by 17^th century Baroque masters such as Rembrandt who, through the buildup of impasto paint, evoked light and shadow in his portraits as a psychological device, similar to the way in which stage-lighting functions in the theatre. Often seeming to be lit from below, the expressive shading in Hartslief's portraits tends to converge around the facial hollows, giving the paintings a spatial as well as emotional depth. The eyes of the women in her portraits, in particular, seem inwardly focused.

Since 1999, Hartslief has exhibited regularly at the Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, including several solo exhibitions. She continues to attract a broad collector base from around the world and is clearly one of South Africa’s most exciting young talents.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018     Interiors, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

             Aura, Everard Read, London, UK

2016     Sasha Hartslief: New Works, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2013     Hartslief  New Works, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2012     Sasha Hartslief, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

             Solo Exhibition, Rosendahl, Thöne & Westphal, Berlin, Germany 

2011     Recent Works, Everard Read, Cape Town

2009     Sasha Hartslief : New Works, Everard Read, Cape Town

2007     Solo Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2017     People & Portaiture, Everard Read CIRCA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa  

2016     Nocturne, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa  

2015     Summer in the City, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
             Homage , Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
             WINTER, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
             EMPIRE, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa           

2014     Summer Season Part I, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
             Winter, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2013     100, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa