Preview Magazine — Vancouver — April 2001
© Mia Johnson

Since 1988, Saskatchewan painter Sasha Rogers (daughter of Otto) has taught and exhibited in Toronto. This much-anticipated exhibit is her first on the West Coast. "Flux" is an elegant series of paintings charged with light and atmosphere. Like packets of light in the optic array, Rogers has layered stroke upon stroke of paint to build strata of suffused energy. Each horizontally-divided half is equalized at the point of interface with a boundary of tautness. The spaces above and below absolutely glow with the sheen of subtle colouration. They seem to rise and fall upward and downward from the centre out, in great blossoms of light. They are simultaneously warm and cool, alive and still, liquid and frozen. Rogers' paintings succeed on many meditative levels, from the spiritual and intellectual to the material and emotional. As she puts it, "meaning occurs between what is invented and what is invited." At first glance, it is hard not to read them as landscapes, with simple landforms and expanses of water below skies. In fact, titles like Prairie Light or Shifting Wind seem to emphasize their corporeality. But a longer, more reflective reading brings forward subtle internal marks and gestures that contradict the obvious. And by this time it is too late - the viewer will be caught in their hypnotic presence.