In Process With Sabine Tress

Today our In Process series takes a look at Cologne based painter, Sabine Tress.
Tress was born in 1968 in Ulm, Germany. She studied painting at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Since she obtained a Diplome des Arts Plastiques in 1994 Tress has worked as a painter and maintained studios in London and Berlin. She has lived and worked in Cologne since 2004.

Here Sabine gives a look at the development of a recent work, My Beautiful Valentine.

Artist Statement:

My work is more and more based on experimenting. It evolves through the working process which leaves a lot of room for changes and surprises. The piece “My beautiful Valentine” is one of my latest paintings and it is quite big, 220x200cm. I wanted to make the best of it and was very excited when I started. The more bits I added the more it became apparent that a format as big as this also needs something substantial. In the last couple of months I also started using oil paint as well as acrylics and this did not make it easier to finish the piece. I wanted it to be light and open and at the same time bold and impressive. It´s also very tricky because although I want to experiment I also want harmony in the painting and finish it quickly. I had to change everything again by painting over the multi coloured structure. I then only used red tones mostly and just a bit of green. It´s become quite fleshy and alive but is still fairly balanced. I am happy with it! But I always think that I could do better next time, be more bold, take more risks, have no fear. Maybe this is why I think that I will be painting for a long long time to come as there is always the next piece and a new challenge.

- Sabine Tress