In her surrealist paintings Sarah Księska likes to inhabit the blurred line between the real and unreal. The unconscious plays an important role, which results in the dream like quality of her work. Objects are digitally collaged and edited and the resulting sketches are translated into oil paintings.Sarah Księska deliberately relies on the sense of the uncanny, which we perceive as a physical experience and, according to Księska, “connects our own human body to its mysterious, psychological or psychosomatic (inner) worlds.” Abstracted organs, cells, and body fragments can also be seen, with mutually overlapping connections and fusions. Ksieska implements aluminum as a painting surface, which provides her compositions with a smooth, silky-shimmering base and anchors them in space. In all of the works, her painterly expertise is particularly evident in the depiction of materiality – from sparkling glass, and finely branched capillaries, to the oscillation between transparency and opacity.



“I work with digital methods and try to reflect upon the influence this has on painting. The final works begin as digital sketches, layered compositions and collages. I like to see the virtual artwork getting its body back. This is why I realize my digital images in paintings. The physicality they get through this process is not just material, but also haptic. Every touch has an identity of its own. It's absurd to simulate a programmer's simulation of real paint brushes from a drawing program, which I tried in a couple of works. The results can get quite strange, but I like that. The digital for me is a state of existence that has to do with a certain kind of otherworldliness and the detachment from reality and physicality, but on the other hand it is a space extremely calculated and defined.Working with it really accelerates the process of image composition, and finally gives space to something more spiritual, undefined, to emerge later.”- Sarah Księska



“At the moment I am using aluminum sandwiched panels for my work. Their smooth and closed surface allows me to construct, collage and erase my paintings, similar to the feeling of painting on my tablet. I feel more familiar with industrial and technological materials than touching a linen sheet. Since switching to metallized materials I have been able to develop some particular techniques that help me to realize all the different gestures and aesthetics of the images I have in mind.

I like how these materials have a sense of being somewhat mysterious and not immediately categorizable.” - Sarah Księska

This work was previously featured in the exhibitions:
(GROUP SHOW) Unto Dust, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris, France, 2023