About Sarah Needham, Artist

To make enquiries please email sarahneedham@artfromlodonmarkets.com
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An artist concerned with human inter-connectedness, and the interplay between the personal and the universal as expressed though the material  of pigment.



















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Artist’s Statement

I start with the way in which pigments leave material colour across human history and geography leaving traces of our interactions. The projects chosen have resonance with the now. The form of the work is abstract spaces to fall into. I make oil paints by hand from the relevant pigments.

Each collection has an historic or geographic specificilty: I have visited the 20,000 year old cave paintings in Pech Merle and learned about the material traceability of ochres and that a prehistoric artist might have travelle d long distances: Researching the British Library archive I found the historical spread of cobalt based glass and glazes through archaeological finds, which illustrated the expanse of cultural exchange during classsical and pre-classical times. Researching the pigments listed in the Bristol Library’s  Presentiment Papers (1770Jan-June), I found evidence of transatlantic indigo just like St Katharine’s (see below) , but also of madder, ochre and verdigris in a little pocket of peaceful trade between the European wars. I looked through The Admiralty papers at the National Archive, to find pigments in ships captured by privateers during the Anglo Dutch Wars. Inspired by Turner’s Slave ship I have researched the pigments imported into St Katharine docks at the time of the abolitionist movement, and found indigo, a slave trade product, making it a colour of exploitation as well as beauty: I have looked at the evidence of Turner’s palette at the Tate, for the new pigments, at the turning point from a predominantly Colonial  and alchemical to an industrial and scientifically based society. Always looking in these points of change for relevant echoes of our current flux.

The form my work takes is abstract spaces, spaces to fall into to get lost and to remember. I owe a debt to twentieth Century artists for the freedom to play in these colour fields, to Rothko and Frankenthaler, to Kandinsky, to Sonia Delaunay and their breakthroughs with colour as substance. But also to the unnamed Church painters of the Middle ages for whom pigments had thier own symbolism.  Technically the medieval dilike of palette mixing, which was a question of material interference, echoed for me in retaining the integrity of a pigment for the story which it holds. And to the developments of oil painting by the Northern Renaisance artists and into the Southern Renaisance, and the techincal traditions of glazing which allow me to layer and lends me understanding of paint as a suspension of pigments which can be layered like strata.
My understanding and expression come through the exploration of these colour traces of our thought and history and the way in which the material holds it’s own story.  That we must remember our human story, how we got here, how this society came into being and what the costs were is a given.  There is a sense in which these colours hold more than the formal record, they hold nuance and space for connection, for potential and extant symbolism and for the stories never told.






Coming Up 2019-20



Makers and Craftsmen, curated interior by Bergman and Mar, Chiswick summer 2019
Curious Duke Gallery, Mixed Show, Whitecross Street London EC1 September 2019
Corby Glenn Project, Exhibition at Willoughby Gallery, Corby Glenn Sept-Oct 2019
Kahn Gallery at the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea London 17-20 Oct  2019
Kahn Gallery at the Affordable Art Fair, Hamburg 14-17 November 2019
Curious Duke Gallery, Mixed Show, Whitecross Street London EC1 November 2019
The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn, 7-10 November 2019
Silson Contemporary Art Gallery, Mid-Winter Show Harrogate, Yorkshire, Mid Jan-April 2020

2017-9 Exhibitions/Fairs
Curious Duke Gallery, Mixed Show, Whitecross Street London EC1, June 2019
Open Studios, EFO Open Art Houses , Sutton Road Muswell Hill, London, 29-30 June 1-2Jul
The Other Art Fair London, Truman Brewery March 2019
 Curious Duke Gallery, Winter show London December-Jan 2018-19
The Black Swan Open PV 18 October exhib19 Oct 24 Nov
Black Swan Arts, 2 Bridge Street, Frome BA11 1BB
Roys People Art Fair, Oxo Tower Wharf, London, UK November 1-4 2018
The Other Art Fair Brooklyn, New York USA November 7-11 2018
SFSA Painting, No Format Gallery/ Deptford Does Art,Deptford London December 2018
Highgate Contemporary Art Gallery, Mixed Painting , Highgate High St, London 2018
The Other Art Fair London Victoria House London WC1 4-7 October 2018
Free Painters and Sculptors at the Muse Gallery October 2-7 269 Portobello Road, W11 1LR
The Curious Duke Gallery Summer Exhibition: White Cross Street, London EC1Y2018 
The Other Art Fair, Bristol, 26-29 July 2018
The London Open 2018 ,  ICI on digital display on screen at the Whitechapel Gallery June-September 2018
East Finchley Open Artist’s Houses ​ June30-July1  and July7- 8 2018
Roy’s People Art Fair, Barge House Oxo Tower Wharf, 12-15 April 2018
Ideal Home Show- London, Why Not Art stand  - digital display and catalogue 17.3-2.4.18
Trace Elements, Deptford Does Art Gallery, Deptford High St, London  8-28 Feb 2018
Private view 8.2.18 7-11
In conversation with Sarah Needham, Paul Anderson Morrow and Matthew Gould, hosted by Rosalind Davis 24.2.18 7pm
Tower 42, Old Broad Street, London EC2N 1HQ .  Jan - April2018
SFSA Painting Open 17, No Format Gallery,  7-18 December 2017
Roy's People Art Fair, Islington, London14-17th September 2017  
Creekside Open 2017 selected by Jordan Baseman, APT Gallery  May 2017
Art Fair Malaga, Palacio de Ferias y Congresses de Malaga, Malaga  2017: Exhibited digitally.
Small Experiments in Colour, Queen's Wood Cafe, Highgate June 2017
The Talented Artist Fair, Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QR (Whitechapel tube)
​17/18/19 March 2017
Exhibitions/Fairs
The Thames: The ARTery of London, Curator:  Angus Pryor, St Katharine Docks  Dec2016
​Sugar And Spice,   Devon House, St Katherine Docks: Curator: Angus Pryor Aug- Sept2016 
Both Ends Of Madness, Sassoon Gallery Folkestone. Curator: Angus Prior 22July 2016
Nautical Perspectives,   St Katherine Docks, curated by Angus Pryor May  2016 
Whenever I feel Blue I Start Breathing,  Earl's Court Project Rooms,  June -July 2016
Open Studios: Open Art Spaces, Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea    June-July 2016
Open studios:Kensington and Fulham Open Art Spaces, Pocket Arts 2015
Place and Proximity, Austin Forum, Hammersmith, Pocket Arts 2015
Refuse Reuse, Kensington, Pocket Arts 2015
Microtopia, Kingsgate Workshops, West Hampstead 2014
Microtopia, Kingsgate Workshops, West Hampstead 2013

Competitions and Juried Shows

2019 Makers and Craftsmen, Curated by Bergman and Mar,
2018 Selected for The Black Swan Open
2018 Long listed for the Secret Art Prize
2018-Selected for round 2 Aesthetica Art Prize
2017 Creekside Open- Jordan Baseman selection at the APT Gallery

Representation:
Real World Galleries
Highgate Contemporary Art Gallery, Highgate High Street, London, N6
Curious Duke Gallery, White Cross St, London EC1

Online Sales Platforms with Art Agencies
Saatchiart 

Artists Agents
Cramer and Bell
Luminaire Arts
Artiq


Projects With Designers
Elicyon: Chalk Project
Bergman and Mar: The Makers Project
Saatchiart: The Flora boutique Cruise Ship project


Collections: Held in private collections in the UK, Australia, USA and Japan

Community Art Projects and Interactive Events

Interactive Events / Community Arts

Willoughby Gallery Project:Oral history collecting, local research, children’s workshop, interactive gallery in the Solo show 2019
In conversation with Rosalind Davis: Rosalind Davis  interview  at Trace Elements 2017
Both Ends of Madness Symposium, Thursday 21st July 6-8pm  Sassoon Gallery Folkestone 2016


Education:
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Graduated  with a 2.1in 1989 in Fine Art and Education from Hatfield Polytechnic.  Reflecting a long term interest in trade and international economic and cultural realtionships  graduated with MSc in Develoment Studies from South Bank University in 1994 and went on to  study Traditional Chinese Ink painting with Prof Ding of Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China 1995-7.


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Photographs taken by Dani Tagen