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Sage Latané Hastert: Holding Dreams

Sage Latané Hastert: Holding Dreams

September 11 – October 21, 2026

Step into a world of imagination and reflection through Holding Dreams. Visitors are invited to explore artwork that captures the thoughtful interplay between memory, imagination, and lived experience.

Artist Lecture and Opening Reception Tuesday, September 22, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Artist Statement

HOLDING DREAMS

Sage Latané Hastert

Art-making, for me, is a practice of alchemy. It’s a way of taking what is observed, experienced, remembered, or dreamed, and transforming it into something tangible. Painting is my attempt to solidify the ephemeral.

My process straddles spontaneity and deliberate action. I don’t want complete control over my paintings. Instead, I approach them in a call and response style. I apply the material – often in an automatic sort of way – and then step back to see how it resonates and what is required next. It is a conversation with the work, in which I try to coax the painting toward the form it is telling me it wants to become. I bring my own impulses, histories, and technical knowledge to the process, but I also try to get out of the way so that the authentic voice of the work can come through.

There is a tension between imposing myself on the work and allowing it to develop its own voice. I want the paintings to breathe – to contain their own histories. Though they originate with me, they eventually become independent worlds, carrying traces of their origin while possessing something that cannot be entirely explained by it. They inherit a kind of genetic memory: fragments of experience, history, longing, and a quiet but persistent sense of seeking.

In the end, the painting is not simply a record of my experience, but a transformation of it. My art is available for another person to enter and interpret, or pass by. The viewer completes another part of the alchemy, bringing their own experiences and associations into contact with the work. What began as an internal process becomes something that can exist beyond me – an object holding a dream.