Brenda Sabbagh
Bio
Brenda Sabbagh was born on October 4, 1993, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She lives and works in Buenos Aires. Her practice lies at the intersection of painting, space, and the body. She explores how the environment, objects, and architecture actively contribute to the construction of our modes of perception and behavior. Painting is her primary medium, but she is not limited to the two-dimensional plane: her work expands into structures, surfaces, and spatial configurations that maintain a direct relationship with the human scale.
She is interested in the outline, the initial stroke, and the power of the sketch as a state of emergence. Many of her works retain that quality of the first stroke, of an idea in progress. The material—especially oil paint applied thickly—introduces presence, rhythm, and accumulation, affirming the physical dimension of the work.
Influenced by contemporary philosophy, her research focuses on how the spaces we inhabit shape our everyday experience and our very understanding of our bodies. Objects, arrangements, and scales construct structures of use that shape our movements and our sensibilities. In this interaction between body and environment, her work proposes a conscious experience of space, where painting and materiality act as tools to intensify perception and expand the way we inhabit our surroundings.
Brenda is a film director who graduated from the Universidad del Cine (FUC) and a visual artist. Throughout her training, she participated in workshops with Carolina Antoniadis, Sergio Bazán, and Fernando O’Connor, and between 2020 and 2021, she took part in an art practice clinic with Tulio De Sagastizábal.
In 2022, she participated in the photography and performance residency and workshop *El instante abismal* at MANTA, directed by Suyai Otaño, and received a training grant from the National Arts Fund. In 2023, she participated in the Pilotenkueche residency in Leipzig, Germany, and presented her first solo exhibition, *Un altar propio*, at Hijas del Arte. Since then, she has participated in exhibitions in Argentina, Germany, Spain, and the United States. In 2024, she presented *El color de las formas* at Galería Gascón, as part of the Uncool Artist residency (New York), and through the Obra Pública program of Fundación El Mirador. In 2025, she presented *Instants of Liquefying into Unison* at the Argentine Consulate in New York and was selected for the Fernán Félix de Amador Salon at the Museum of Fine Arts in Luján. In 2026, she presented *Coreografías del cansancio* at La Galerilla in Uruguay; and *Ensayo General*, a solo show at Al Sur gallery in Recoleta, Buenos Aires.
Statement
My practice is based on an exploration of the body in relation to space and the objects that structure everyday life. I work on a human scale; my own body and those of my collaborators serve as a field of inquiry, examining how subtle gestures give rise to textures, images, and states of perception through painting, while incorporating elements of performance and installation.
I am interested in domestic space and its political implications. I incorporate objects that function as stereotypes of furniture, understood as culturally situated constructs. Screens, chairs, and structures derived from furniture surround or support the paintings, operating as devices that reorganize the relationship between the intimate and the public. Often these objects are rendered incapable of fulfilling their function: their weight, materiality, or scale create friction that affects posture, balance, or the way we inhabit the space.
I work with oil paint because of its density and because it demands a slow pace. The layers, the visible contours, and the traces of the process keep the work in an unfinished state. I am interested in that extended temporality, where time becomes palpable and the surface records the waiting.
Film is a constant reference point. I conceive of my works as suspended frames, interrupted scenes that create atmospheres of latency and liminality. I seek to generate situations in which the body finds moments of pause, where perception becomes more porous and the possibility of other modes of attention within everyday life opens up.
Additional information
Brenda trabaja con óleo por su densidad y porque exige un tiempo lento. Las capas, los contornos visibles y los rastros del proceso mantienen la obra en un estado inacabado. Le interesa esa temporalidad extendida, donde el tiempo se vuelve palpable y la superficie registra la espera.
2.5 x 4m / 98.4 x 157 in
