Tatiana Sarasa presents Ochre et Lait at ABA Art

his exhibition starts with some ochre pigment that I collected near some cliffs in the south of Mallorca, where the sand has a reddish colour that comes from the Sahara and the changing sea levels. It is a wrinkled part of earth, of time and history, and together we had a conversation over months. My exhibition [Ochre et Lait] is a tribute to it,” explains Tataiana Sarasa about her current show with ABA Art, which opened on September 19th.

‍

Sarasa has been using natural materials in her work, such as fibre, plants and pigments, for several years now, exploring its potential in numerous ways. With Ochre et Lait, she takes these ideas into new dimensions, creating a body of work that is deeply personal yet also conceptual. “We are [the materials] having a conversation together. I am treating the ochre as a creative force, like a collaboration,” she says, a conversation from which she has developed a series of sculptures, paintings and installations that touch on creation, destruction, fluidity, transformation and time.

‍

Sarasa extracted the ochre pigment using a levigation technique, spinning the sand with water to separate the pigment from the rest of the material. From here, she ground it to powder. “This process and colour led me to the word tenderness. I thought about humans and acts of tenderness and it led me to breastfeeding – this silent act, a primitive force,” Sarasa explains. “I really loved this idea. It’s something animals all share. It’s about nutrition. We forget what is around us and nurturing us.”

Tatiana Sarasa, Ochre et Lait, Installation view at ABA Art. Photo by Juan Gavilán

T

his connection led her to the image of a funnel, a shape which is seen throughout the exhibition, from suspended sculptures in soft, gauzy fabrics to a selection of paintings and works on paper. The funnel doesn’t retain anything, it facilitates, it transmits something. In a central installation, a bunch of flax falls gently through one of the funnels onto the floor towards a collection of standing flowers sculpted out of beeswax. The funnels act as transmitters of nutrients to these flowers, each of which has a hidden nipple within their petals, a “reminder that there is so much abundance and love,” Sarasa adds.

‍

Everything in the exhibition was done with intention, a slow process of extracting, preparing, mixing, sewing, all by hand. “These elements help to open up windows where you can suddenly understand something better, it opens up new paths, new connections, where you can feel at peace but also feel something primal,” Sarasa reveals. Another figure that plays a central role in the exhibition is that of Yama-Uba, a Japanese folktale figure that represents creation and destruction. Sarasa was interested in exploring this duality, that nature is not always kind and gentle but can be destructive and challenging as well, but that is the natural balance of life.

‍

In several of the paintings on glass, a metaphor for fragility and strength, Sarasa transforms the ochre into a tempera, using egg yolk to bind the pigment, and her fingers to push the pigment in a gestural, abstract strokes that are extremely intuitive and free. “I really let myself go for this exhibition; I said to myself that I had to trust and be confident and just go – what we [the materials] are saying together, to me it just made so much sense. And I wanted to share that with people,” Sarasa says.

“I really let myself go for this exhibition; I said to myself that I had to trust and be confident and just go – what we [the materials] are saying together, to me it just made so much sense. And I wanted to share that with people."

Tatiana Sarasa, Ochre et Lait, Installation view at ABA Art. Photo by Juan Gavilán

M

ilk (lait in French), the second ‘titular theme’ of this exhibition after Ochre, takes on multiple references in the show. It acts as a metaphor in the allusions to breastfeeding and tenderness and it is also used as a binder in several paintings. But most poignantly was the experience that led ‘lait’ to becoming an essential theme in the exhibition, an experience captured in two framed photographs, the only works in the show that represent a real-life moment. In the photograph, Sarasa holds a white plastic label that had been floating in the sea. She had come across it after having collected the ochre rocks from the shore. On the label is the word ‘lait’, along with Arabic writing. The label was from a box of powdered milk, no doubt from a boat coming from Africa, as those red sands did hundreds of thousands of years ago, and still do today. It was a very powerful realization for Sarasa, looking at these ochre rocks and this plastic milk label. There was so much written in these objects, about the passage of life and death, about the passage of time, land, and even about Mallorca itself and its own passage.

‍

There is a softness to Ochre et Lait, a sense of harmony to the works on view, yet there is also something provocative and almost urgent about it as well; To place these themes at the centre of the exhibition Sarasa dares to remind us of the power of compassion, of poetry and the endless possibilities that nature gives us. It’s a reminder all of us can use.

‍

Ochre et Lait is on view at ABA Art through December 2026.

Join the conversation

Share your thoughts, tips, and local knowledge with our community

Discuss this story

community · instagram · pinterest

Next Story.

Savour

Mar 9, 2026

Mel Caramel: A Passion Project Becomes An Award Winning Honey from Mallorca