Sadie Aston is a painter whose work explores the liminal space between life and death, as well as the interplay of past, present, and future. She completed her MA in Painting at Arts University Bournemouth in 2022, following a BA in Fine Art, and has since exhibited in the UK and internationally. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions, including This and Other Worldly Glimpse (London, 2024), and is held in private collections.
Sadie’s practice delves into the existential experience of inhabiting a body and the act of surrendering to the world around us. She embraces the fleeting nature of life, investigating how our internal self-perception shapes our external experiences. Emotionally and psychologically charged, her work examines the complex relationships we cultivate with ourselves and others, inviting viewers to reflect on their own sense of presence and transience.
Influenced by Spiritualism, her paintings evoke an ethereal, otherworldly quality. She employs radiant hues and a dreamlike colour palette, creating ghostly figures that seem to dissolve into the abyss—capturing both the impermanence of human existence and the temporality of emotions. Using found imagery of individuals at rest, as well as her own lived experiences, Sadie transforms these anonymous figures into intimate presences, shifting them from strangers to companions.
Her process begins with fluid, watery underpaintings created by pouring mediums mixed with minimal pigments, staining linen or cotton duck. From there, she alternates between revealing and concealing bodies through erasure and painted marks, allowing figures to emerge as if suspended between worlds. This interplay of light and form creates a contemplative space where reality, memory, and time slip and fold into one another.
"I perceive the world as a manifestation of my imagination, where I am the architect of my own reality. To me, the universe is an inherently magical space, with time as a mere construct and multiple timelines interweaving and unfolding simultaneously. It is as though energy is momentarily captured within the frame, existing in one instance and vanishing in the next."
Sadie Aston
Awaken captures a profound, intimate moment – the kind of quiet connection that often goes unnoticed but is deeply felt. The bedroom becomes not just a physical space, but an emotional energetically charged one, where the boundaries between individuals blur and merge into the shared, sacred energy of togetherness. Nude figures blend with the environment suggesting a sense of oneness, where identity and presence are not defined by individual separateness but by a collective harmony.
The painting explores not just physical proximity, but the emotional depth of simply being with someone, without any need for words or grand gestures. It's that peaceful, unspoken bond that’s often at the heart of a truly intimate relationship, a real feeling of home. The bedroom becomes both a place of vulnerability and security, where we can be at our most exposed but also our most protected.
