Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Esther Sarto’s Writhing, Supernatural Scenes

Esther Sarto, a 24-year-old painter based in Copenhagen, creates gouache and watercolor works that are often as unsettling as they are elegant. Sarto, once known as “Miss Take” as a street artist, often uses bare, entangled humans and plant-life to express her sentiments. ”I am not a very verbal person,” she told WEAART. “There are a lot of issues you can express better without words. Often the meaning lays between the lines.”

Esther Sarto, a 24-year-old painter based in Copenhagen, creates gouache and watercolor works that are often as unsettling as they are elegant. Sarto, once known as “Miss Take” as a street artist, often uses bare, entangled humans and plant-life to express her sentiments. ”I am not a very verbal person,” she told WEAART. “There are a lot of issues you can express better without words. Often the meaning lays between the lines.”




“Forest of Obscurity,” with its wooded settings and writhing subjects, offers a taste of the worlds Sarto creates. The supernatural rises out of the natural, as morphed bodies create something entirely new upon inspection. The series “End of Virtue” takes a darker turn, as huddled naked bodies create a grand pyramid and the rich dine on various body parts against a red backdrop in “Carnivores.” She often depicts her process and works-in-progress on Instagram.




Sarto’s pen on paper works can be just as starring, evidences in the striking “Human Nature,” flora constructing the image of a human. A similar image was recently translated to a massive mural by Sarto, towering over streets on a wall in Denmark. Sarto’s also done illustrative work for Medium, The New Republic, Material Girl Magazine, Aalborg Kommune, and others.




Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
If Daniel Merriam's watercolors were books, they would be fairytales once upon a time in a far away European dreamland. The painter, who is currently exhibiting at AFA Gallery (covered here), compares his process to a writer's. In our recent interview, Merriam told us about the influence of 17th and 18th century Baroque architecture on his works which he draws from memory.  Although imaginary, his elaborate structures must be believable in their world, and he builds them out carefully as a point of reference. In this sense, one could also call him an architect.
Moving between works on paper and ceramics, Cathy Lu explores cultural identity and traditional Chinese art in her work. Many of her pieces contain dozens of young female characters, scaling classical vases and metaphoric lifeforms. The artist offers some insight into what she’s traversing in her work:
There seems to be a history running through Carmel Seymour’s water colors, but it’s hard to pin down. Somewhere in the hazy but sublime gap between art and illustration, the paintings suspend an alternate reality in the canvas’ mid-air, depicting some hyperreal folklore in a wash of negative space. Seymour’s conceit seems simple enough: she places contemporary figures, such as girls in jeans and sneakers, in some private oasis, perhaps the figures’ dream landscape or perhaps some alien planet. But the landscapes where her figures exist are not so much 'scapes as objects; entities without a before or after. Her water colors are deployed in highly restrained and linear strokes to focus on details, and then exploded to disrupt the hyperrealism and maximize the medium’s atmospheric emphasis. The paintings have no clear beginning or end, but beg the question: what’s the story here?
Jeff Soto (HF Vol. 18) celebrated his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles since 2009 on Saturday night with "Nightgardens" at KP Projects/MKG. We recently discussed the exhibition with Soto in our studio visit here, where Soto shared his continued interest in landscapes: "Nightgardens" is an exploration of the magic and mystery in life coupled very loosely with the tradition of landscape painting. For this show I am using the concept of "nighttime" as a symbol of the unknown. I'm working on creating an imaginary world of magic, monsters and daydreams that exists in a different time and place, yet alludes to issues in our chaotic modern world."

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List