We recently connected with Anastacia Sadeh and have shared our conversation below.
Anastacia , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I was invited to donate one of my paintings to Art for Advocacy 2023, a charity event that recognizes the restorative power of art and raises money and awareness for Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center. This wonderful charity serves over 8,000 children and their non-offending family members each year! Knowing that my work can, in some way, help provide sanctuary and continiued therapy to our community’s most vulnerable is something I hold very close to my heart. I created “Gowns and Shadows” for this auction. This work leans into the connection I find between our spirtual and emotional minds as we move towards mental wellness.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a contemporary figurative and abstract painter. I received my BFA with a double major in printmaking/drawing and art history from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. I spent a short time teaching fine art at the Lovett School in Atlanta, GA before moving to Minneapolis, MN and becoming a member of the AZ Gallery, an artist co-operative in St. Paul. I now work and reside in Dallas. My work examines the complexity inherent to human connection as I explore the ongoing relationship between self-awareness and mental health. I use primarily acrylic and other water-based painting mediums to create my images. I use Venetian plaster in many of my paintings to create unique textured surfaces. These surfaces often represent tactile memories connecting to the emotions and mindset in question. My current preference is to work either on stretched canvas or cradled wood panels as these readily support the application of layered paint and plaster. I currently sell only original artworks, but am interested in exploring how to translate my work, its textures and layering into limited edition prints and, perhaps, acrylic blocks. I like the idea of being able to play with their size, open up new space possibilities, and larger availability.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
More than from a ‘goal’ persay, I think my creative path as being fueled by my ongoing curiosity in mental health and its effects on human connection. I am intrigued by how we connect to both ourselves and to others. I examine these connections through the lens of emotional and somatic personal-awareness, as well as through individual and generational mental health. I am interested in: validating the experience of becoming self-aware; the emotional authenticity that ensues; and the various effects these experiences have on human relationships and thus, the human condition.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
lol… well, I have had to unlearn more than a few things along the way for sure.. I think a big part of discovering who we are is about releasing what never helped us, despite how it may have been labeled by our cultures and/or communities. I think its about learning to trust ourselves and our experiences as valid, really. Personally, I had to unlearn how I looked at making mistakes. I’m not sure where I absorbed my previous black and white style thinking, but I do know that learning to see mistakes as truly learning opportunities was a step closer to grasping the growth mindset I need to feel authentically present with both myself and the people around me.
Contact Info:
- Website: anastaciaSadeh.com
- Instagram: @sadehstudioarts
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sadeh.studio.arts
- Other: https://www.threads.net/@sadehstudioarts