New Collection in Development: Captured Ships

Eendraght, Hand mixed oil on canvas, 120x200cm work in progress

Levels of Darkness                               Gyre
in the Declining Light

hand mixed oil on wood with coppered edges, 50x50cm works in progress

It’s the start of a new year and for me the start of a new collection. Those of you who follow me on instagram @sarahneedham1965 will know that I spent some time in the National Archive both in person and virtually last year researching the cargo of the ships captured during the Anglo-Dutch wars.  The most common pigment in the cargo was indigo, and the most likely routes to be raided were the long trans Atlantic ones.  

Letters of Marque were issued by the crown since the 1500s. Letters that licensed private ship owners to attack merchant ships and  then share the proceeds with the state.  Trade wars were real wars, and merchant ships were considered fair game.   This form of piracy included some big names in the early days, Francis Drake was a privateer and slave trader. 



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 By the end of the second half of the 18th century a further level of use of force came into play as the rates of press ganging privateer crews into the crews of admiralty ships became more common with the build up of navy forces. Merchant ships on the transatlantic routes were involved in slavery, the crew might be press ganged, the ship captured by privateers or pirates, and the relationships between private traders and the state were complex and intertwined. The period of the Anglo-Dutch wars was broken by periods of trade and an uneasy peace, while the practice of capturing ships under licence did not entirely go away.

 

Echoes of the Privateers,
​50x50cm
hand mixed oil on wood, with coppered edges
​work in progress

So I am starting the year making work that creates spaces echoing with those particular stories of trade, of privateering, the slave trade and the kinds of violence associated with shifts in power and what happens when trade wars become real wars.  When competing desires for money and power are left raw and unconstrained so only the most violent, most forceful will win, and power is in flux, and without accountable agreement.

​ These initial works are in indigo, but there will be others using  red and yellow ochres, smalt and madder.

This is in preparation for the fairs that I will be doing in London in spring, The Other Art Fair which will be at the Truman Brewery in March and Roy’s People Art Fair which will be at Oxo Tower Wharf in April. Look out closer to the time for ticket links to both.

When the Fog Comes Down
50x50cm
hand mixed oil on wood with coppered edges
​work in progress



All the works shown on this post are incomplete, and this is illustrative of the way that I work on collections. Hand mixing oils and using organic pigments requires long drying times, and layering and varnishing processes need dry lower layers.  My studio is currently pretty full of work at various stages, surfaces being prepared, works on the go, finished, almost finished and only just started.  While making a collection I like to work in this way so that there is a real relationship between the pieces, they flow into each other, influencing each other and enriching one another.  At the point of writing I am waiting for the commissioned giant to be picked up and shipped out which will create more space in a couple of days time, allowing me to grow the collection some more.