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Sara Breinlinger’s current collages and paintings explore the interplay between spontaneity and structure. Each piece unfolds as a negotiation between what is felt and what is measured. At times, she begins with a framework—a grid, a system, a quiet scaffolding of rules—offering a sense of order. But this order rarely remains intact. It becomes disrupted by gestures, intuitive marks, ruptures, and the resistance of materials themselves. Noise, misalignment, and ambiguity seep in, and the grid gives way.
Other times, the process is reversed: a fluid, expressive surface emerges first, only to have systems imposed afterward in an attempt to contain, interpret, or stabilise what has already taken place. In both cases, structure and spontaneity act not as opposites, but as collaborators. They shape and undo each other in an ongoing visual dialogue that is both intentional and unpredictable.
Sara is drawn to the moments when systems falter—when clarity dissolves, when precision is met with imperfection, and when meaning arises from interruption or collapse. These moments form the core of her practice. Each work becomes a record of that conversation: a rhythmic call and response between control and surrender, between containment and release.
Rather than ever fully resolving these tensions, the work allows them to remain open, breathing and shifting. The process is cyclical—structure surfaces from disorder, then collapses back into it. Each surface holds memory of both.
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