Work samples

  • Happy happy, joy joy
    Happy happy, joy joy

    Sasha-Loriene McClain, Happy happy, joy joy, 2023, Acrylic, Oil Pastel, String, and Found Object on Canvas, 40x30x1.5 in.

    Happy happy, joy joy represents the small youthful moments of joy that can be felt in everyday life and serves as a reminder that we have more choice and autonomy that we often may feel or see.

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About Sasha-Loriene

Baltimore City   2024 OTW Artist  

Sasha-Loriene McClain is a Maryland based multidisciplinary artist whose work is informed by her inner-child healing journey, self-discovery, and search for home. Born to Liberian immigrants, Sasha-Loriene uses artmaking through storytelling to cultivate home independent of time, space, and location. Her practice explores mixed media figuration, surrealism, and abstraction, employing bold composition, texture, and personal subject matter to embody the human experience – the intersection of… more

View Sasha-Loriene's Resume
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Good For The Soul

Good For The Soul is an ongoing body of work that documents my inner-child healing through ‘play.’ These works emphasize the importance of play and exploration in daily practice and are inspired by art forms enjoyed during my youth, including collage, found object, crochet, and installation. I incorporate fabrics and fibers gifted to me from people in my life and repurposed canvas from older works (studies from TEAL) into paintings of collages made for the sole purpose of experiencing joy regardless of the times. These works symbolize the fun aspect of artmaking that simply feels good for the soul while I simultaneously balance heavier subject matter in my past body of work (Mind You Well), my concurrent body of work (Child’s Play), and my research-based genealogy project beginning in 2024.

  • Where to next?
    Where to next?

    Sasha-Loriene McClain, Where to next?, 2023, Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Canvas, 36x36x1.5 in.

    Where to next? represents our innate curiosity, exploratory, and experimental nature that is/was often celebrated during childhood. The balloon symbolizes our hopes, dreams, and memories (both ancestral and individual) and how it can be used to steer us through multiple facets of life.

    • Child's Play

    Child’s Play is a body of work (collage-based paintings and installation) and community arts programming (inner-child collage workshops) that documents my inner-child healing through ‘play.’ These works are inspired by personal photos from family photo albums and influential friendships in my life. I incorporate mixed media, visual recordings taken during the creative process, and repurposed canvas from older studies of the TEAL Collection to emphasize the necessity of the past into the present while emphasizing play back into my daily practice in real time. As I find home in myself, I cultivate my own sense of belonging and celebrate my inner child Mahyue through sharing her stories.

    • My brother and me
      My brother and me

      Sasha-Loriene McClain, My brother and me, 2023, Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Canvas, 60x48x1.5 in.

      My brother and me depicts the artist and her brother as children with respect to their seven-year age difference. The original photo was taken in 1994 at their childhood home, placing their ages in the painting around four and eleven, respectively. Sasha-Loriene highlights the childhood joy of each child during a time when sibling rivalry dominated their relationship to celebrate the close relationship she now shares with her brother in adulthood. 

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    • MUVA: MITOCHONDRIA

    MUVA is a triptych dedicated to the ancestral memory that is passed down through the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). MUVA represents the eternal transdimensional connection between myself, my mother, my grandmother, and so on through the common ancestral maternal line of all living human beings known as Mitochondrial Eve to help fill the void of growing up without my grandmothers. Elements of this triptych can be seen throughout subsequent bodies of figurative work, particularly in hair and clothing. The women who came before me will continue to live within my works and artistic direction.

    • MITO
      MITO

      Sasha-Loriene McClain, MITO, 12x9x2 in, Acrylic, oil pastel and ink on wood panel, 2021

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    • TEAL

    TEAL: To Evolve And Liberate (the color of growth and renewal) is an intuitive manifestation of ‘tell your story in your artwork.’ This collection represents raw expression and growth of my artist practice through 15 older works originally created 5-9 years prior and reimagined via abstract expression and emotional alignment during my 30th year in 2021. Each work maintained their original name and was inspired by my childhood experiences and struggles with self-expression, verbal communication, and mental health. In moving through these feelings and emotions, I highlight my creative release by exploring abstract expression. 

    • She Who Reigns
      She Who Reigns

      She Who Reigns, Acrylic, Oil, and Oil Pastel on Stretched Canvas, 40” x 30” x 2”, 2021

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    • Mahyue, Inner Child Healing

    Mahyue [‘mäh·yo͞o], derived from the Bassa (Liberia) word for ‘girl’, is a collection of personal works inspired by the little girl that lives in me - the girl I tucked away in the past but always lived within my drawings, sketches, and paintings. In an effort of self-discovery and actualization, I reacquaint myself with Mahyue and let her run free. Her stories define me as a woman, artist, and being. Mahyue selects the tools and mediums to finally bring her dreams into reality in canvas form. In doing so, I examine the relationship of how I viewed my placement in the world during my childhood, being limitless and colorful while truly believing that ‘anything is possible’, with my placement as I grew into adulthood, my experiences shaping the world around me and changing my perspective to ‘anything is possible… within reason’ – an oxymoron. Whether I box myself within my own constraints, the world around me will continue to exist even if I don’t. So why not heal? Mahyue deserves it. I deserve it.

    • Bloom. 12_x9_ Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Wooden Panel Framed (1)_0.jpeg
      Bloom. 12_x9_ Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Wooden Panel Framed (1)_0.jpeg

      Bloom, Acrylic Paint, Ink and Oil Pastel on Wooden Panel Framed, 10"x8”x1.5”, 2022

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