Sabrina Hartel was born and raised in Chicago, IL, but spent about 10 years in New York City, and now Joliet, IL. During much of that time, she was a portrait photographer, specializing in offbeat portrait photography. When she came back to Chicago, she took to painting. She has a home studio that is literally stacked to the walls with abstract paintings. "I always tell people," she said, "I have a working studio, not a showroom," she gleamed. Some of her favorite painters are: Jackson Pollock, Williem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, amongst other abstract expressionist painters. She identified with painting from the conscious... lines, shape and color… almost like a stream of consciousness… "When I tell people I'm a painter, she says, "The first thing people blurt out is, 'I can't draw to save my life.' I can't either. I can't draw... well… not really. I'm an abstract expressionist artist. In other words, painting is not necessarily about 'drawing.' Painting, can be, and indeed it is, about expression… a form of expression. Painting can be about something you see, something you feel, taste, or even something you dreamt about."
"Anirbas" is Sabrina spelled backwards, as in Anirbas Art. If asked, Sabrina describes her work as "urban, gritty, yet sometimes polished," bopping her head sideways, "...like organized chaos."