SOFT TENSION

Sarah draws her inspiration from the shapes of the ocean and the sea, and the visual feel of Eastern tapestries. Beyond that, she works highly intuitively, though even that, she says, likely comes from all the inspiration around her. Her influences are most often nature, or beautiful destinations. She is happiest in the sea, and can't get enough of the colors nature offers across the world.

For Sarah, the theme captures what art means to her. It describes not only the work she created with Plugin, but all of her work: what you see when you look at it, and the deeper meaning of the process behind it. She works with shapes that flow yet never fully merge. Frames around them create tension between the forms, so that from a distance the shapes take on different guises and everyone sees something else in them. Her material is soft too: by melting oil pastel, the works take on a velvet feel, almost as if you could stroke them. And her colors carry the same tension, bright tones running through each other in a work you can't ignore, in size as much as in color. The process itself is Soft Tension. Tension arises through patience and intuitive work, waiting until what she sees reflects exactly what feels right. For her it's deep focus alternated with long pauses, rather than the action-driven way some artists create.

Look for the shapes, the colors, and her format, which is always the same. Because the works already contain so many forms and colors, she keeps everything else consistent. Still, each piece evokes a different feeling or atmosphere in every viewer. Something she loves, because it lets her see the work through someone else's eyes. And that, she believes, is what art is meant to do: connect.

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