ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings usually begin with chaos. Too many feelings, too many thoughts, nowhere to put them. I don't sit down with a clear concept or a message I want to communicate. I paint because something inside me asks for space, even when I don't yet understand what it is. What overwhelms me in my head finds its way onto the canvas.
Painting gives me access to parts of myself that I can barely reach any other way. Many of my works begin long before I understand what they are really about. The process itself is what helps me understand. The painting, the waiting, the coming back. I often change things along the way, paint over them, replace colours and symbols. Slowly things start to make sense. My paintings are not expressions of certainty. They are part of an ongoing attempt to understand myself.
For as long as I can remember, I have felt different from the people around me. I could never quite put into words what it was or why – but the older I got, the clearer it became. I learned to live with a mask. To fit in, to prove myself, to appear more normal than I felt. It takes an enormous amount of energy. It still does.
When I paint, the mask gets in the way. I can't wear it and be honest at the same time. So I take it off. And for that time, I feel lighter.
Strong contrasts are central to my visual language. Black and white figures, vibrant colours and symbolic elements reflect the tensions, contradictions and complexities that shape my inner world. Rather than seeking resolution, my work embraces ambiguity and invites reflection.
I work primarily in oil paint. The slowness of the medium suits the way I process things. Time, distance and repetition become part of the work itself, and that creates space for something deeper to emerge.
I know how hard it is to sit with certain feelings. The ones that are easier to push away than to face. My paintings are not intended to provide answers. Instead, I want to create a space where those emotions are allowed to exist freely and without judgment. Not just for myself, but for others too. A place that maybe gives you the courage to engage with the parts of yourself that are difficult to name or fully understand.
BIOGRAPHY
Aïcha Sacha is a Beninese-German self-taught artist based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
As a child, she painted constantly. Experimenting with colour was always more important to her than creating a beautiful picture. Over the years, other things took over and she stopped. It was only after a deeply difficult period in her life that she returned to painting. This time with more urgency. She began with graphite. Stark, black and white, unsparing. Gradually she moved into oil paint.
Today her practice is inseparable from her inner life. She paints to process, to understand, to access parts of herself that words cannot reach. Alongside her oil paintings, graphite drawings remain a vital part of her work. Quieter, more reduced, but no less honest.
Her paintings are not illustrations of feelings. They are the process of finding them.
