Saliha Staib Calegan

Artist Statement

I work primarily in oil on linen, building layered surfaces where gestural marks accumulate and dissolve. Transparency meets opacity. Structure gives way to spontaneity. The resulting compositions hold tension—forms push against one another, colors vibrate at their edges, yet moments of openness allow the eye to rest. Whether a painting emerges bold and saturated or soft and atmospheric, I am searching for that point where it achieves its own internal logic and presence.

My path to abstraction came through figuration. I trained classically, learning to render the human form, its weight and gesture. Abstraction did not replace this foundation but distilled it—the body’s rhythms now live in the brushstroke itself.