Sarah Needham Artist

Today I had the delightful opportunity to meet Beverley Thornley in person for the first time.  I love it when a social media contact becomes a real world one, and Beverley with her fascination with chalk and concrete and traceability makes beautiful work which comes straight out of the earth .

We had lovely conversations around traceability, memory, and also about our shared interest in pigments, and her very site specific work, and how my work even when site specific is only in as much as it related to the global history of trade.

She has some projects she is thinking setting up  so watch this space….

And sweetly she is the second artist to visit my very small studio space and say “I am impressed you manage to produce what you do from here….”

In addition I am delighted to announce that I am to be represented by Luminaire Arts.

And delighted that Why Not Art are at the Ideal Home show this week with a catalogue of artists including me.

Spring really is in the air with all these potential new beginings.

The Boating Pond At Alexandra Palace Park

There is nothing quite like snow and ice for pushing vision into stark contrasts, or perhaps its got something to do with my current state of mind. The work I have been preparing for Roy’s People Art Fair over the last few weeks has had this as a back ground. Playing with the fact that along the Southbank there are a series of buildings which were once the power stations of the city due to their proximity to the river and the ease of shipping coal there, they are now arts venues, providing a different kind of energy and light.

Light collection, wet paint, in the process of being built….
So I picked up the work from Trace Elements after being frustrated by the snow.  I had been going to hire a self drive van, however I really didn’t fancy driving an unfamiliar vehicle in the snowy weather so I had to book a last minute art van, I booked through Gallery Services, and they were great.  The driver saved me from having to return on public transport by giving me a lift with the work. Great service!

At the show I had had a conversation with Alex McIntyre which put me on a mission once I got the work back, the four pieces I had there have now been coppered down the edge, which happily looks like rivitted copper bottoms.  These pieces  will be with Why Not Art as a collection from next week.

Then this week I had the delight to be invited to the Curious Duke Gallery for  Chris King’s show No Opportunity For Regret, so as it was on a single bus ride I braved the snow and was so glad I did.  This is the first time I have been to the Curious Duke, I have been wanting to for a while but never quite made it there. I met Eleni Duke, and chatted but flaked out of introducing myself, that will have to wait for another time…The show is quite soulful, urban images empty of people, they reminded me of Hopper,  and then some of them had an intensly graphic sensibility. Really worth going to have a look.

And in reposnse to the clarity I was feeling because of the snow, I decided to follow up on a few opportunities I was still waiting to hear from.  So before the snow melted I had heard back from the No Format Gallery crisply and clearly that I will have a Solo show in November.  Another opportunity I was hoping to hear from by the end of the month has given me  a more snow melty blurry you have been added to the waiting list response, and the third people I contacted simply have not answered my email.

So while the landscape emerges out of its blanket of snow ice and fog I am still hoping for a little more clarity in my plans.

This Saturday 24th February at 7pm  we will be in conversation with Rosalind Davis at the Trace Elements show, downstairs at Deptford Does Art’s new gallery 28 Deptford High Street SE8.  Just before the show opened we were lucky enough to have the chance to meet her and discuss what we would be talking about, so I have had plenty to think about. I find perparing for this kind of event really useful as it helps me to really clarify what I am doing.   The format is to be friendly and inclusive, so please come along, and if you have a question you’d like to ask Matt, Paul or I or all of us please bring it along and you should get your chance.  For more details please go to this link:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paul-anderson-morrow-sarah-needham-matthew-gould-trace-elements-tickets-41607777984

So the show is still  up and open Weds to Sundays 12-11 except Sundays when it closes at 7.  Closes Next week.

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So January and February have felt a little dominated by solo administration , but recently I have had the pleasure of starting of on mutual support sessions with one artist friend and been invited to join an online artist professional support group by another,  and a local artist I have been in contact with online is popping round for coffee next week to discuss pigments, so exciting.

I have started work on my collection for Roy’s People Art Fair which you can keep track of on my instagram at @sarahneedham1965

In addition I have a collection of work available through Why Not Art, where you can rent or buy art direct online, or if you like you can visit their stall at The Ideal Homes Exhibition  London this spring where they will have a catalogue and screen display of all the artists they represent.

whynotart.com/artists/sarah-needham/

And in the end none of these things would have happened if I did not already have a lovely network of fellow artists who support each other, so hurray for new connections.

Be in touch soon!
Sarah