An alum of The Artsy Vanguard 2022, Sahara Longe left the United Kingdom at age 20 to study portraiture at the Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy. There, painters were limited to using only five colors for the first two years-a constraint she credits for fostering her meticulous attention to color and detail. Longe, now 30, is presenting her second solo exhibition, Sugar, at Timothy Taylor, featuring twelve new enigmatic paintings, echoing the haunting sensibilities of Secessionist painter Otto Friedrich and Symbolist Ferdinand Hodler.
These works attend to more personal themes than her previous works, which were defined by scenes of crowds and social interactions. Instead, she is focused on the quieter moments of individual experience, created by applying raw pigments-including vermillion, lilac, raw sienna, and ochre-to thick-grain linen. A highlight of the exhibition is Bad Dreams (after Ferdinand Hodler) (2024), an oil painting depicting a naked female figure embracing a shadowy figure in bed. This work, with loose brushstrokes and greater attention to light and shadow, indicates her move toward a more impressionistic style, where her subjects, often women, are enveloped in ethereal states.
