SASHA HARTSLIEF
(b. 1974, Gauteng, South Africa)

About Sasha Hartslief

Passionate about drawing from an early age, Sasha Hartslief is largely self-taught. Hartslief’s subjects are often viewed from a philosophical, deeply personal perspective, resulting in paintings that are emotionally charged, pensive in mood and considered in composition. Her subtle investigations into the human condition somehow strike a chord with us.

"I defer to the classical Masters for inspiration," says Sasha Hartslief, who admits to placing images painted by the 19th-century American Impressionist, John Singer Sargent, next to her easel while she paints. Her muses include the 19th-century neo-classicist, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, whose draughtsmanship and linear dexterity provide formal inspiration for her works.

But Hartslief's brushstrokes are more diffuse than the precise, stylized techniques of the neo-classicists. Like the French Impressionists, she uses brushstrokes to evoke the transience of light, colour and movement. And like her Renaissance and Impressionist forebears, she employs everyday visual devices to explore the way in which atmospheric light and tonal modulations inform a surface, and to evoke atmospheres fraught with symbolic subtexts. But the transience of the captured moment is counterbalanced by the disciplined rigour of Hartslief's technique and painterly process. She admits to being "obsessively skills-driven and consumed" by her work. Each image becomes a formal study in light, contour and line.

Hartslief's experimentation with chiaroscuro techniques derives inspiration from the works by 17th-century Baroque masters such as Rembrandt who, through the use of impasto, evoked light and shadow in his portraits as a psychological device, similar to the way in which stage-lighting functions in the theatre. Often seeming to be lit from below, the expressive shading in Hartslief's portraits tends to converge around the facial hollows, giving the paintings a spatial as well as emotional depth. The eyes of the women in her portraits, in particular, seem inwardly focused.

Since 1999, Hartslief has exhibited regularly at the Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, including several solo exhibitions. She continues to attract a broad collector base from around the world and is one of South Africa’s most accomplished young talents.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023
Looking In, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2022
Sasha Hartslief | Shadows and Reflections, Everard Read, London, UK
Sasha Hartslief: A Quiet Life, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020
Nocturne, Everard Read, London, UK
New Works, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
SASHA HARTSLIEF: Patterns of Light, Cape Town, South Africa

2019
RECENT OIL PAINTINGS By Sasha Hartslief, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2018
Interiors, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Aura, Everard Read, London, UK

2016
Sasha Hartslief: New Works, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2013
Hartslief: New Works, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2012
Sasha Hartslief: New Works, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Solo Exhibition, Rosendahl, Thöne & Westphal, Berlin, Germany

2011
Recent Works, Everard Read, Cape Town

2009
Sasha Hartslief: New Works, Everard Read, Cape Town

2007
Solo Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022
Winter 2022|23, Everard Read, London, UK
Spring | A Group Show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
Summer | A Group Show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2021
Offering, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
OASIS: 25th Anniversary Group Exhibition, Cape Town, South Africa

2020
Staring Straight to the Future, Everard Read, London, UK
Winter 2020, Everard Read, London, UK
Imago, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
On Being, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
Journeys of the Mind, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2019
Sasha Hartslief and Grace Da Costa, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2018
Summer Exhibition III, Everard Read, London, UK

2017
People & Portraiture, Everard Read CIRCA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2016
Nocturne, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2015
Summer in the City, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Homage, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
WINTER, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
EMPIRE, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2014
Summer Season Part I, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Winter, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2013
100, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa