Dementia,Autumn, fading light, playing with media

This week I have been fiddling about with media,

thinking about the lost girl series, experimenting, and attempting to complete Fulham Leith. The darker evenings, and the greater contrast in light between night and day makes me realise that these paintings may get lost in a room that is not well lit.
Full daylight image indoors vs full sun

Decreasing light seems to me to be a very useful metaphor as dementia progresses and the person’s ability to communicate gets further challenged. The struggle to communicate so that all they are able to talk about is the most here and now of their experience.

So right now her experience is dominated by physical pain and activities which are beyond her ability to process because they require more light than she has. And she is not able to settle with this limit. Not satisfied, she wants distraction and finds it easy to blame everyone else for her restlessness, so it is easy for a gloomy depression to descend, and difficult for carers to lift that depression, or to resist it.

I find myself feeling rebellious and contentious faced with this slow fading of the light.

complete Fulham Leith
This piece contemplates the collective stories which have been washed away, unmarked or unremembered in a city like London, with a great river running through it.

In a way this creates more determination to record Padma’s shadowy stories, and also contrarily a wish to simply be able to accept, let it be washed away.

So I am starting a piece reaching towards that velvety darkness of the Lot Valley. Soft in the heat of the air, a darkness almost but not totally complete, and yet comfortable, beautiful absorbing. A level of darkness quite simply not available in London or any other town or city where the orange glow of street lamps interferes: Only found in rural remoteness or at sea. Happily my new canvases have arrived. In addition to this I have a love apple painting, based in the tomatoes that were growing in the greenhouse at Fulham Palace in mind, coppery, well lit, bright. And shaped in a way that gives testiment to their old name. A peculiar duality going on in my work and my life.

Sarah Needham

An artist concerned with human inter-connectedness, and the interplay between the personal and the universal as expressed though the material of pigment. 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 specificity: 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 travelled 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 classical 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 breakthroughs with colour as substance. But also to the unnamed Church painters of the Middle ages for whom pigments had their own symbolism. Technically the medieval dislike 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 Renaissance artists and into the Southern Renaissance, and the technical 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 its 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 Summer Exhibition at Silson Contemporary, Harlow Oval, Harrogate June to August 2021 The Affordable Art Fair with the Kahn Gallery, Battersea, London 7-11th July 2021 Mixed Exhibition at The Kahn Gallery, London July 2021 Three person show at Irving Contemporary, Essex Street, Oxford, 10 July- 7 August 2021 Solo Exhibition of work at Vintners Place, for selected by Eleni Polycarpou for exhibition at Vintners Place, viewing by appointment. May-November 2021 Earlier in 2021 Letters From a Strange Year Pop up 1, the first real world pop up the artist project at Vout Vintage ,95 Colombia Road, London E2, 26-29 April. 2021 Sarah Needham Solo, curated by June Frickleton, a solo exhibition at 1,Tower View, Kings Hill, Kent, and a group show at the Control Tower Gallery, Kings Hill, Kent. Viewing currently by appointment only. Feb10 - May 2021 Online Letters From a Strange Year, joint artist project with Paul Anderson Morrow launching on line with an e-salon on Thursday Jan 21 at 7pm, and a virtual exhibition exhibition, real world exhibitions and venues with dates to be announceddates to be announced 2020 The Other Art Fair, The Truman Brewery, London October 8-11 2020- Cancelled Autumn Show, Silson Contemporary Art Gallery, Harrogate, October-Jan 2021 Water | Land, Irving Contemporary Art, Oxford, November15 Nov20 -Jan21 Artist Walks, 4a Sutton Road, N10 1HE, 14Nov-14Dec20, community Art Project responding to the lockdown exhibiting in domestic windows across North London. Summer Show, Gallery Artists, Silson Contemporary Art Gallery Summer show August-September 2020Unframed Highgate Contemporary Unframed online show May 2020 V-Art.Show Online open studios April/May /June editions 2020 Art on a Postcard with Highgate Contemporary Art in aid of Feed NHS sold out April 2020 The Other Art Fair Online Studios, on Saatchi online April to October2020 Beyond Other Horizons: Contemporary paintings made in Britain and Romania, Iasi Palace of Culture, Iasi Romania. 1st- 31st March 2020. The exhibition will open on 3rd March 2020 with a British Council Symposium. Funded by the British Council, curated by Anna McNay, Peter Harrap and Florin Ungurianu closed early due to CV then extended to April Mid-Winter Show, Silson Contemporary Art Gallery, Harrogate, Yorkshire, Mid Jan-April 2020 Moved online Many of the planned shows and fairs were delayed postponed or as in the below cancelled due to Corona Virus Affordable Art Fair New York with Kahn Gallery, Spring: Cancelled 2020 The Other Art fair London, postponed to October 2020 and again to June 2021 Late 2019 Makers and Craftsmen Project, curated interior by Bergman and Mar, Chiswick to winter 20 Kahn Gallery at the Affordable Art Fair, Hamburg 14-17 November 2019 Luminaire Arts Gallery, Beyond Abstracts, 7 Denbigh St London SW1V 2HF Nov-Dec 2019 Recent Competitions and Juried Shows 2019 Makers and Craftsmen, Curated by Bergman and Mar, 2018 The Black Swan Open selected by Johnny Messum, of Messums Wiltshire, Michael Eaves of Glastonbury Festival, Steve Burden Artist, Debbie Hilliyard of Hauser and Wirth, Sue Conrad Artist 2018 Long listed for the Secret Art Prize selected by gallerist Eleni Duke 2017 Creekside Open- selected by Jordan Baseman senior tutor at The Royal college of Art Representation: Galleries Thomas Spencer Fine Art, London and Dorset UK Highgate Contemporary Art Gallery, Highgate High Street, London, N6 The Kahn Gallery, London exhibits globally at The Affordable Art Fair Luminaire Arts Gallery, Vauxhall, London SW1V 2HF Silson Contemporary Art Gallery, Harrogate Yorks Irving Contemporary, Oxford Online Sales Platforms with Art Agencies Saatchiart EPORTA Artling Artists Agents Cramer and Bell, London, UK Luminaire Arts, London, UK Artistic Brief, London, UK The Art Register London Frickleton Fine Art DAC Art Consulting, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Artling, Singapore Artful London UK Collections: Held in private collections in the UK, Switzerland, France, Australia, USA, the Middle East and Japan Education Graduated with a degree in Fine Art and Education from Hatfield Polytechnic 1989, a Masters Degree in Development Studies from South Bank University1994 and studied traditional Chinese Sumi-e ink painting under Prof Ding in Jiangxi China 2015-7

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Sarah Needham