Sarah Davies: Hidden/Revealed

Exhibition

Sarah Davies is an artist from North Shields, Tyne and Wear. The exhibition was at the Holy Biscuit in Newcastle during January 2019.

The artworks were on three walls in definite groupings, the first one as you came into the room was painted and inked paper, cut and folded so that as you looked from different angles you could see different versions of the artwork. The second set of works were canvases that were damaged and sown, mended or embellished in some way with gold leaf and gold thread. The final section of Hidden/Revealed was four squares of different fabrics each with a quarter of another swapped in to make four ¾ matching and ¼ mismatched pieces of fabric.

Sarah had been exploring the Japanese art form of Kintsugi and found it a very interesting concept to highlight the brokenness of objects with gold. She wanted to do something similar, but instead of mending broken pottery with gold, she thought she’d do her own take on it by using gold leaf and thread instead. She had also recently been reading a book about hope coming out of difficulties and sorrows; and finding joy during deeply painful times. She deliberately cut paintings and damaged canvases and then beautified the damage.

I liked the way the exhibition was set out. However tall or short you were, you could still see a ‘version’ of the artworks (I know a disabled boy in a wheelchair who went with his carer and wasn’t completely bored because he could actually see the art.). I loved the Kintsugi section because it was really pretty even though it was broken canvases and nothing too special in theory. The last part was fun, as you could match the quarters to the original pieces of fabric but they still looked right in their new positions. There was a lot of creamy white and gold, with glimpses of blues, yellows and greens. It was a very peaceful atmosphere and the artworks were delicate and beautiful.