For a painter, transitioning from landscapes to abstract art signifies nothing less than a plunge into the unknown: Observation yields to intuition, and the imagined replaces the concrete. Having worked in both styles, Delray Beach artist Michelle Sakhai, 42, appreciates the sense of nuance and rigor they share.
For more than 20 years in her native New York, Sakhai painted en plein air, working outdoors and endeavoring to capture the fleeting luminosity of the nature scenes in front of her. “You have minutes to create something before the light will change and the painting will look completely different,” she says.
She studied the practice in Europe, at institutions such as the School of Visual Arts in Barcelona and the Leo Marchutz School in Aix de Provence, France, following in the footsteps of giants. “I was going to the Café la Nuit and standing where Van Gogh painted [his famous work Café Terrace at Night], and standing in the spot where Cezanne painted the Sainte-Victoire mountains.” Golf course paintings became another specialty, even if it meant sneaking into men’s only clubs on Long Island.
Sakhai estimates she completed at least 1,000 plein air paintings between Europe and Long Island. Ultimately, she says, “there are so many ways you can paint a tree, at the end of the day. At the same time, I think I wanted to reach a deeper level for myself, and I just couldn’t get there with painting landscapes. So for me, to reach that next level, I had to transform my work.”
That transformation was not immediate, but metal leaf would become its central ingredient. Sakhai, who was raised by parents of Persian and Japanese ancestry, first integrated metal leafing in works inspired by well-known Japanese woodblocks. “I would play with the negative space of the landscape with the metal leaf,” she says. “Little by little, it took over the whole painting. And then I ended up lining my canvases with metal leaf and then painting over them.”
Soon enough, Sakhai turned her gaze away from the land and toward the sky, painting 20-plus visions of cloud-filled vistas with metal leafing. She considers this period as her bridge to abstract art. “I loved playing with the abstraction of the clouds, and I just had this freedom I didn’t have with painting strict landscapes.”
Her abstract works, often large in scale and sometimes encompassing multiple canvases to form diptychs and triptychs, feel bigger than life but tethered to the rhythms of Gaia—drippy and impressionistic and full of movement. Given their titles, such as Tides, Into the Wind, and The Space in Between, it’s no surprise to learn that Sakhai’s approach is rooted in the metaphysical. She believes in reincarnation, has studied Ayurveda, and is certified in Primordial Sound Meditation. “I believe in the energy of the creative spirit as a healing force on the earth,” she said, in her artist statement. “When I connect with a deeper part within myself as I paint, I trust that this translates to those who enjoy my work.”
“Before I work, I like to gather my breath and then go into a piece very aware, so that way, I’m prepared. I jump in,” she adds. “I don’t want to sit there for hours. … I feel like the paintings look more alive when you have these spontaneous, quick strokes. When you’re in a studio, you can go over your strokes over and over again. … The first stroke is the truest one, and it’s honest.”
We’re sitting in the capacious living room of her home, enjoying pastries from The French Bakery, her favorite local haunt. Since 2024, Sakhai has lived in the gated community of Andover—she says her former apartment in New York’s Upper East Side could fit inside one of its rooms—alongside her husband, who works in the pharmaceutical industry, and their infant son Alex.
She describes her studio, like her life as a new mother, as in “transition”; her immaculate house did not evoke the kind of colorful chaos one might expect from an artist’s residence. But she was able to show me a diptych from her newest series of untitled works, which reflects her more minimalist direction of late. The canvases depict pieces of gold leaf raining from the top like confetti and combining with leaf-shaped strokes of white paint, all atop a layer of shimmering silver leaf. The fragile gold leaves ripple when Sakhai walks past the work, an effect she loves.
When I mentioned that the gold leaf indeed resembles autumn foliage cascading from a tree during the transition to winter, Sakhai gave a knowing smile. “I just can’t escape my past of being a landscape artist for so many years, so it just comes through with all my work.”
Where to see Sakhai’s work
Michelle Sakhai’s hardcover book, AWAKENING: The Paintings of Michelle Sakhai, is on sale at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens and the Boca Raton Museum of Art. Her paintings can be seen at Studio E Gallery, 4600 PGA Blvd., Suite 101, Palm Beach Gardens.
This story is from the Summer 2026 issue of Delray magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
