SASCHA MALLON
Artist Statement
Sascha Mallon grew up in Austria, receiving her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Vienna. She studied art therapy at the Academy of Art Therapy in Vienna and then spent a year in Paris. She travelled all over Europe and the US and now resides in Brooklyn with her husband and her daughter. She is currently an artist-in-residence at a cancer center in New York and has a studio in Brooklyn where she works intensively on her drawings, sculptures, and ceramics. Sascha Mallon’s drawings are personal and metaphoric with a focus on love, pleasure, longing, reflections on body and passion. The sources of her inspiration are daydreams mixed with reality, which she transforms into visual fairytales. Her works expand on her interest in life, the end of life, and transitions. The narratives she creates are filled with strong memories and feelings; they are visual poems full of meaning.
"The Opposite of Gravity" is a reflection on the process of dying from cancer. The piece is connected to my work as a hospital artist in residence for the Creative Center.
This piece is an attempt to take away the heaviness of being seriously ill and the thoughts about letting go as a painful act. Gravity is taken away and the women floats light in space. This drawing is a document of how I deal with the weight that comes along with my work at the hospital. After every chair I draw, and every person floating up, I feel lighter too. The woman in the chair is naked, exposed. It feels as if she is fighting for her dignity. Some of the people in the drawing get injured by the chairs that are floating up as well. Maybe there is no escape from getting hurt?