Artist Statement

These paintings were created between January and May of this year, but their origins have been spinning around my head since last summer. The past twelve months have brought a significant amount of personal change - which culminated in moving into a new home and studio and becoming an American citizen. Gaining citizenship was both a homecoming and a reckoning. It’s impossible not to acknowledge the fraught political landscape we’re in and the contradictions and challenges that come with calling this country home right now.

When I returned to the studio, I found myself painting fire—a symbol of destruction, but also of renewal. Then, in January, wildfires swept through Los Angeles, and political tensions flared across the country. Fire was no longer just a metaphor for me—it was everywhere.

In trying to process the chaos and change, I use paint and collage as a way of searching for meaning. I take scraps of paper that have already been painted on, used as stencils or pressed into wet paint— repurposing paper from one place to another. As these fragments accumulate—making material memories—they form new compositions; a process that I find equal parts unplanned and deliberate. Each layer carries traces of previous decisions, much like the experiences that shape and reshape us.

Sally Baxter 06/2025