Erika Sanada 2018

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Erika’s ceramic creatures are fantastically bizarre, evoking both pity and disquiet. Her delicate color palette paints the animals as young, innocent beings. Their pastel and milky white skin with pale pink eyelids and noses suggest that they are new to their surreal world, unprotected and helpless. Although outfitted with claws, teeth, & golden horns, they are hairless, naked and vulnerable, defenseless against outside forces of nature and emotion. There is an intense sadness to their relationships with themselves, and one another.

These heartrending beasts are representative of the artist’s struggle with her own anxieties. Drawing inspiration from the supernatural movies and animations she watched as a comforting refuge during a difficult childhood, Erika’s dark inspirations suggest escapism into a different universe. Her subjects live within this sphere, draw the viewer to it. Tenuously balancing between terror and tenderness, Erika’s fascinating work leaves the viewer questioning their relationship with their own fears.