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Sibylle SzaggarsPaintingWorks on Paper |
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ABOUT THE ARTIST... Sibylle Szaggars was born in 1957 in Hamburg, Germany. Painting and sketching came to her naturally as a child. As a teenager she travelled extensively with her family throughout Europe, Morocco and Malaysia. She began then to admire the depth and mystery of older cultures and traditions and recorded with paint and pencil her experiences on paper. Szaggars was drawn to post-impressionists such as Gauguin and van Gogh and studied their work and techniques. She moved to London, England, in the early 80s and fell in love with the Tate Gallery and the Acadamy of Art. Here she was introduced to the works of Turner and many other modern and abstract artists and spent many afternoons in the galleries observing and studying their art. In the mid 80s she rented her first painting studio under the roof of a working warehouse in the Lower East End. The space was shared with many other artists who added some influence to her work. She started exhibiting her work in group shows in Germany and London. Eventually her travels would bring her to the USA in the late 80s. Her continued interest in old cultures and traditions would lead her to the mysteries of Native American culture. She found special power and magnificence in the arid mesas of Arizona and the Hopi traditions. In residence on the mesas for some time, she learned about the Native Americans' spiritual connections to life, the land and the world, and was deeply touched by it. The result of this experience was a large series of paintings marked with a spiritual resonance. Szaggars moved to Utah full time in the early 90s where she set up her painting studio in the mountain village of Sundance. Szaggars' developing concerns for the future -- concerns about the natural order of things -- continued. Between '94 and '96 her work began to actively warn of the impending dangers of extinction. These large canvases, painted statements about the world's vanishing wilderness, not only represented her commitment to protecting the environment but spoke of the camouflaged danger of denial. In the year 2000, Szaggars returned to Morocco where she visited ancient towns and villages along the Draa Valley towards the Sahara Desert. There she was inspired by the almost silent beauty of the women, men and landscape, the calm sensuality and sumptuous dignity of the human presence set against an ancient history and tradition. Her 2001 San Francisco exhibition of painted oil sketches and photographs influenced by Morocco opened just after 9/11. The World Trade Center incident was shocking and confusing to Szaggars and inspired a new series of lushly painted studies of flowers and vases in 2002-03. A flower in a vase became an act of peace and poetry in a time of bombardment. Vases and vessels hold the living, but even that which holds is fragile. These images are a timely reminder that suggest the precariousness of containment. In 2004, a new series of large abstract paintings, called "Wondrous Possibilities," focused on freely floating objects. Here, Sibylle Szaggars explores a different thought -- freedom from containment that reaches into the wonder of undefined space, shape and color, suggesting possibilities both cosmic and cellular. Szaggars has exhibited internationally in Germany, England, the USA, Peru and Japan. She is also represented by the Ernesto Mayans Gallery in Santa Fe, NM; the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland, CA; and Linda Fairchild Contemporary Art in San Francisco, CA.
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