Sasha Napoli

About Sasha Napoli


Sasha Napoli is a recent graduate from the University of Leeds specialising in painting. Beginning with an abstraction of the human form framed by architectural features of an interior space, she questions the threshold between the painterly mark and the creation of an entire image. By manipulating the viscosity and transparency of the paint, mark-making, materiality, and complementary colours become the basis of her paintings. Thick coats of paint conceal, while light glazes and scratching reveal what is underneath, creating both an illusion of depth through layering and drawing attention to the painting’s inherent flatness.

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Her concern with the painterly mark and interior space is interlaced with an interest in Renaissance and Baroque art. In Baroque ceiling frescoes, sculpture was used to emphasise the illusory nature of painting and extend it beyond a single surface. Using this, she moves between focusing purely on painting and, when she feels necessary, introducing sculptural aspects that extend motifs from the painting into space.

Ultimately, I am constantly questioning the boundaries of painting and how they can be pushed beyond the assumed limit of the painterly medium.