Pictured: Salt Flats 4 - acrylic on canvas, 2019. Photo courtesy of Brigitta Wagner Sultana.

This Friday, head over to the Mara Art Studio and Gallery to check out Emerge - Translation from Sight to Surface, the latest exhibition from local artist Brigitta Wagner Sultana. Emerge marks the first gallery opening for Sultana in over a decade. Since her last showing, she’s been balancing her artwork with being a full-time mother of two. “I took painting through my whole college career, and print-making. I never stopped painting after I graduated college. I always did it as an outlet, a creative outlet, other than what I was doing in graphic design,” says Sultana. “I haven't really shown since 2010, because I had another baby, and then I took a pause, but I've always just been creating. As an artist, you never stop.”

Emerge will feature a new direction in Sultana’s painting - landscapes. The showing will draw from two separate series, Salt Flats and Stones. Where her painting prior to this series was more transitory, her focus on the geometric aesthetic of these landscapes has proven fruitful to her work. “I just created what I wanted to at the time, there wasn't a specific subject matter. Now, I feel like I have a specific subject line that I'm working on and a way that I'm doing it – but it’s taken me a long time to figure out,” attests Sultana.

Fittingly, both the Salt Flats and Stones series draw inspiration from time spent vacationing with her family. The Salt Flats series is based upon photographs Sultana took of the salt pans along the coastline of the island nation of Malta, where her husband hails from. Sultana, who mixes her own acrylic-based paints, depicts the rectangular landscapes in various colors and formats, some of the paintings feature hard lines and bold colors, while others are more ethereal in their style.

Much of the same can be said for her Stones series, which draws its inspiration from photographs she took of her children while they built a stone wall on a sandy beach. Similarly to the Salt Flats series, the paintings from Stones are based upon Sultana’s initial photography – during her creative process she decides whether or not to transfer the image directly onto the canvas or paint from memory. Regardless of how she comes to it, Sultana has hit her stride with her latest gallery opening.

Opening Night Event, Friday, October 7, 2022, 5:30-7:30pm, Mara Art Studio + Gallery, 1421 5th St. Rosemary District, Sarasota, 941-914-8110.

Pictured: Salt Flats 4 - acrylic on canvas, 2019. Photo courtesy of Brigitta Wagner Sultana.