Artist Statement
While holding in our hands material pigments that were held in the hands of , or under the feet of, or in the clothes on the backs of people from the past, we can hold lost voices across time in an entangled connection with the present, if we listen very carefully.
The materials in my current work are chalk, iron, carbon, manganese, water, egg and oil, which form bone and blood, plants and life and by virtue of that also death. They form ochres, carbon blacks, umbers, manganese black, rust, brick dust and the oil paints I make and use.They are also found in the found objects in my current work. these are the materials of Palaeolithic cave paintings, and the basic matter of life.
While holding in our hands material pigments that were held in the hands of , or under the feet of, or in the clothes on the backs of people from the past, we can hold lost voices across time in an entangled connection with the present, if we listen very carefully.
The materials in my current work are chalk, iron, carbon, manganese, water, egg and oil, which form bone and blood, plants and life and by virtue of that also death. They form ochres, carbon blacks, umbers, manganese black, rust, brick dust and the oil paints I make and use.They are also found in the found objects in my current work. these are the materials of Palaeolithic cave paintings, and the basic matter of life.
"Sarah Needham is an artist and academic interested in unearthing hidden histories of humanity, taking into her conceptual sway the likes of piracy, the colonial slave trade and the witch hunts of the 17th century. She does this via a painstaking archeological extrapolation and finessing of pigments from the earth[ and material history] , which she then employs to create abstract Rothko-esque canvases that seem to invite the viewer into contemplation of the infinite. Her practice hinges very much upon the notion that the very material she uses to create her art carries meaning in-and-of-itself – with pigments broken down by pestle and mortar that have their roots in the political and social upheavals of history. The key postulation being that the critical deconstruction of the material history of very ordinary things, such as plates and crockery, can give us all access to a commonality of being. In fact, all of the hues present in her works tell stories of the geological history of the earth and the overlooked everyday human interactions that shape our history."
John Paul Pryor, Secrets and Lies:The Artist Sarah Needham on abstracting hidden histories into profound emotional encounters, Culture Collective Journal, 31.3.23 on the housecollective.com platform
John Paul Pryor, Secrets and Lies:The Artist Sarah Needham on abstracting hidden histories into profound emotional encounters, Culture Collective Journal, 31.3.23 on the housecollective.com platform
Photography by Dani Tagen
