Sara Steele

Watercolorist Sara Steele approaches her work as a sacred kind of play that follows her meandering curiosity. Her medium demands a respect for the accident. A meditative discipline, watercolor allows Steele to move with that which cannot be controlled. She understands its need to flow, guiding its intentions through discussion. Steele has said that in this conversation, one dialogue is of making, the other of looking. She sees color as a nutrient, is native to its fluidity, and empathizes with the medium.

Steele describes her art-making process as an amplification of her vision, an intimate exchange, and a seeing of the colors behind color. “Indigo is almost black at full strength, it’s a beautiful blue-gray when pale, and mixes well with other colors. It’s a mysterious pigment.” These words describe the painter herself, an auto-didact who is strong in vision and flexible in exploring subjects. She applies ecstatic, undivided attention to her work inviting viewers to drench themselves in color and light. Perhaps because of her subject matter, Steele is often described as the O’Keefe of her generation, but she sees her work as worlds apart.

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