Sara Conde

Sara Conde creates abstract artworks on paper and canvas that are inspired by contemporary culture and the sublime natural world. It is a combination of drawing, painting and printmaking. The color is inspired by color theory of the 60s with a palette which comes in the form of acrylics, watercolors, ball point pens, colored pencils, markers, graphite, enamels, mica, and the inclusion of fluorescent and metallic colors. The mixture of materials and techniques results in a conceptual complexity of texture and surface: the immediacy of drawing, the ponderousness of painting, and the graphic quality of woodblock print. It is a way of working that comes to her naturally but that she has developed through research in biology, contemporary communication technology, and from direct observation of the environment; when Conde finds images that interest her, she makes them her own through abstraction by complicating or simplifying them. Conde creates her works applying the imagery in multiple layers and over-processing the surface through mark-making, while creating the illusion of multiple dimensions with the help of variety and rhythm. She plays with the duality of flatness and space, and with a variety of forms in different colors, sizes and materials. She also creates ephemeral installations in architectural, urban, and natural spaces.

Explosion, Comet, and Call Me Maybe are some titles of Sara Conde's artworks that explore human and earthly landscapes of our time. Conde uses psychedelic colors from the 60s in her paintings and wood block prints to transform us to another time and dimension all of her own.

She builds up surfaces for her oblivious dreamscapes that confuse the eye and take us on her journey to a past that dips into the future. A mountain will turn into a cloud surrounded by a metal fence, that changes into lines that look like cliffs near a footprint that could be a cell.

Conde makes us focus in on her petri dish with fluorecsent or metalic colors -- alerting us to certain forms and drawings we need to pay attention to. Multiple layers draw us in and out of her world that is made up of many layers.

James Horner. Manhattan Fine Arts Examiner