Sara Conde - Giant Thumbprint

Sara Conde

I create biomorphic artworks in the disciplines of painting, drawing, installation and printmaking. In my work I represent abstract biomorphic elements and reference abstract movements such as minimalism and abstract expressionism. The works are built of simple and complex shapes in different sizes; I play with the duality of flatness and space as well as with color. My vocabulary is inspired by natural forms and the space is sometimes informed by landscape. It is a way of painting that comes to me naturally but that at the same time I have developed through research. My research comes from nature books, from the internet, from direct nature, and from images found in everyday life that I make my own through abstraction, complicating or simplifying them. I have created these drawings through the incorporation of a variety of media such as ball point pen, graphite, color pencils, markers, watercolors, acrylics, and woodblock print, on paper, applying the imagery in multiple layers and over processing the paper through mark making. In Giant Thumbprint, the image above, I have combined painting, drawing and printmaking on paper while using acrylics, colored pencils, graphite, ball point pen, and ink. I have created a combination of painting and drawing and I have printed with woodblock on top of it. The composition incorporates a field of fluorescent color and it is a form of abstract painting that combines minimalist, expresionist, and biomorphic elements. The paper is slightly torn as part of the body of the work. This emphasizes the ephemeral quality of paper, a material which is at the same time strong and fragile.