In Conversation with the Artist
There’s a certain magnetism to Sasha Porter’s paintings — a tension between chaos and control that draws viewers in and doesn’t let go. In her latest body of work, the London-based abstract artist continues to explore the emotional landscape through bold color, layered texture, and intuitive gesture.
We caught up with Porter in her East End studio on a quiet afternoon, where brushes sat drying and canvases leaned against the walls, mid-thought. Dressed in paint-splattered overalls, she spoke candidly about her process, her resistance to structure, and why she never paints with an outcome in mind.
“I don’t try to tame the canvas — I listen to what it’s asking for. Sometimes it needs silence, sometimes it needs to scream,” Porter says, her hands moving expressively as she speaks.
Her process is entirely instinctive. She rarely sketches, opting instead to work directly onto the canvas, allowing the piece to evolve through intuition rather than preconception. For Porter, painting is not about creating something beautiful — it's about uncovering what’s already there, just beneath the surface.
The new works are unmistakably hers: energetic yet contemplative, with deep swaths of reds and ochres colliding against cooler tones of blue and teal. Texture plays a vital role — thick, tactile layers that demand proximity. “I want people to feel the energy in the surface. It’s physical. It’s memory and emotion made visible,” she says.
Despite the gestural freedom of her work, Porter’s paintings are anything but random. Each mark is a response to the last, a dialogue between thought and feeling, restraint and release. “It’s a conversation. The hardest part is knowing when to stop talking,” she laughs.
As for what’s next, Porter is reluctant to say. “I don’t like to predict,” she shrugs. “The work always tells me where it’s going. I just have to be quiet enough to hear it.”
With exhibitions lined up in Berlin and New York later this year, and growing interest from collectors and curators alike, Sasha Porter is an artist very much in her moment — and one who reminds us that abstraction, when done with honesty, speaks volumes.
