"The absurdity of everyday life has always attracted me, and so the topic of telephones is irresistible," she explains. "Suddenly, phones are ubiquitous, and I find it to be a bizarre new vice."

In "Telescapes," an exhibit of 10 paintings at Atwell's Art and Frame, Sajecki explores the sensuality and intimacy of telecommunication. Each of the oil paintings features women, in various states of dress and undress, talking on the phone to some unseen party.

"All of these paintings are on the phone," she says. "The paintings themselves are busy, miles away, unaware of people looking right at them. They are connected, yet they are only half here. The only way to reach them is to call them."

Sajecki prefers to paint old-fashioned landline telephones with cords, rather than sleek cell phones or handy cordless ones. She explains that the cords have great lines and are more interesting to paint.

The spiral cord that curls from the hand-held receiver has an umbilical quality in "Telescapes," connecting women on a biological, as well as a technological level, with the invisible person on the other end of the conversation. Most of the women in these paintings exist in solitary spaces – in richly patterned rooms or vague, mottled voids – that highlight their sense of physical and spiritual isolation.

Sajecki's work in "Telescapes" consists of two basic approaches: intimate portraits of nude women talking on the phone and subversive paintings based on vintage photographs which manipulate time and space in bizarre juxtapositions.

"She Was Still Mostly Dreaming When She Answered the Phone" focuses upon a small-breasted nude woman clutching a green phone as she moves through a pale lime background. The woman holds a teal phone in her hand that matches the precise color of her eyes, suggesting that she exists in an alternate telephonic reality. A red swath of paint beneath her feet evokes a sense of coming into consciousness, offering a jolt of color in an otherwise flat, dreamy landscape.

"Two Odalisques: Part One" focuses upon a sensuous nude brunette reclining on an emerald green floral sofa, her eyes closed as if engaged in a rapturous, all-consuming conversation. An odalisque refers to a slave or concubine in an Oriental harem, but Sajecki's painting seems to suggest that we are all, in our own way, slaves to the telephone.

In "Portrait," she recreates a vintage 1960s family photo which includes a child in a white dress, a young woman with a beehive hairdo and an old woman in horn rimmed glasses clutching an emerald green phone in her hand as the curly cord spills across her lap. The telephone's very presence seems to violate the sanctity of the family, serving as a threat to the intergenerational harmony suggested by the smiling photograph.

"What a Day: And the Phone Kept Ringing," focuses upon a 1960s bride and bridesmaid painted in period shades of pale seafoam green and shell pink. The smiling bride, based on a photograph of the artist's own mother, clutches a pink telephone receiver as the cord curls awkwardly around her floral bouquet. The insertion of a telephone into the matrimonial composition seems to serve as a violation or interruption of the action at hand.

Originally from Connecticut, Sajecki moved to Savannah to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1997. She earned a bachelor's degree in painting in 2001 and has exhibited her work in a number of local group shows at Red Gallery, Aquaspace and Oglethorpe Row Gallery.

"Telescapes" marks the first time that this 24-year-old artist has had a solo show.

Sajecki believes that people reaching out to one another through the telephone line is an important way of connecting in an increasingly alienating, fragmented world.

"People acknowledging that they want each other is at least a tentative step in a sweeter direction," she explains. "Here I celebrate this fixation with communication."