#sarah lederman

[killyridols]

protea posy by sarah lederman, 2023, oil & pastel on linen, 35 × 30 centimeters

[killyridols]

green by sarah lederman, 2022, oil on canvas, 50 × 70 centimeters

[killyridols]

protea posy in autumn by sarah lederman, 2023, oil & pastel on linen, 76 × 51 centimeters

[artfulbloggeruk]

An interview with Sarah Lederman

Suckle, oil on canvas, 2014

Playing, oil on canvas, 2014

Bodies waiting, oil on canvas, 2014

Tell me a bit about your work….

What inspires you?

It changes, but I think themes often reoccur. For a long time I painted self-portraits that were inspired by childhood and teenage fantasies. At the moment I am more interested in the way in which the female body has been depicted historically, looking at images of medieval illuminated manuscripts and other historical paintings. In medieval paintings peoples’ bodies are floppy and doll-like. I find myself fascinated by the way bodies look in images of medieval hell and am interested in how once moral tales become sexual and seductive, whilst groups of humans seem to become one creature, crawling across an apocalyptical landscape-they turned into animals through the brutal, depraved, sexual deeds they are undertaking. 

I like to read a lot, especially fiction, authors like Anne Enright and Angela Carter. I get into a headspace where I start having very surreal dreams about what I’ve been reading, and this influences my work. I am currently working on a painting inspired by a childhood friend’s drawings, Tahir, who I would sit at the back of the class with. We were both  heavily dyslexic and spent our time drawing butterflies instead of doing school work.

Why painting?

I love painting, I love paint, I love mess and l love dirt.  I love getting my hands dirty, it’s like being a child in a mud pit. I like playing around with colour and how seeing how different pigments create different looks and textures. It’s like alchemy, using earthy tones to build something completely different. I like the sense of control I have over it yet at the same time I feel powerless. I never know what I am painting or what it is going to look like before I make it, and often forget afterwards how I made it, it feels like magic.

I am interested in paint’s relationship to the body.  Paint becomes like dirt and cells building up skin. The canvas can act as a skin as well, with the paint acting as bodily fluids.

Do you or would you ever experiment with alternative ways of working/different media?

I did a bit of performance work at whilst on my BA at Chelsea, and maybe one day will return to it but for the moment I feel I have too much to discover in paint. I did a piece called Gentlemen only, where men entered a flour filled room one at a time with me in the centre sewing a pig snout to a doll. Another was called Wrists, where I licked lipstick off my wrists and the lipstick covered by face.  I was really excited by these at the time. They seemed to convey a sense of the body but now I see them more as sketches for my paintings than works in themselves. 

At the moment I am thinking about making a book to accompany my work telling the stories behind or around the paintings. I have a story I want to tell about a little girl who gets kidnapped and digested by a blue monster who visits her every night. It's in the very early stages so we’ll see if it actually happens.

How do you feel your work has progressed since graduating from Goldsmiths last year?

That’s a difficult question as I feel like I have only just left. I know I feel a lot more relaxed when making and I think that shows in my work. I think it’s something you might have to ask me in 5 years time when the full extend of everything I have learnt has settled in. It’s always hard to work out what is going on with the work at the time... 

The work is definitely quite different from before the MFA (at Goldsmiths). I feel that my taste as well as my work has changed.  I think my work has developed a lot, it takes me longer to decide what to paint, there is a longer process of collecting images and reading before I start the painting.   

Do you see your work as being preoccupied with images of the female body (as in Sirens and Hamsters and Hell) /even if not explicitly, feminine forms (as in Imagined Landscapes)?

Yes the female body is a really important part. Even when I am painting men or landscapes the female body is present. I am interested in how the female body is perceived as neat, pretty and contained, as I think of it as fluid, abject and uncontrollable. 

Paint is the most bodily thing I can think of. I once read somewhere that wearing plastic gloves to protect your hands from the danger of poisonous paints was akin to wearing a condom to protect you against STDs- so painting is something erotic and sexual and feminine for me no matter what the subject matter is. 

I am particularly interested in Caroline Walker Bynum’s ideas about the medieval feminine in her book ‘Fragmentation and Redemption’, especially that of Jesus’s body on the cross as female and his mind as male. This made the female body earthly, and pain became an important part of worship. Wounds on Jesus' body were seen as vaginas- where life comes from. Nuns and saints from this time would harm their body, or suck pus from lepers. Allowing their own body to become likes Jesus's on the cross.  

What is the work you have been most proud of thus far?

I couldn’t possibly pick one. From each series of painting there are a couple I really love. They are tied with my personal feelings towards them. It takes a while for me to decide if I really like something, and normally that’s a couple of  years, so by then I am bored of the painting I like and focusing on new work.  Most recently I think that Bodies waiting and Suckle are really exciting.

Could you tell me a bit more about your involvement in the documentary, ‘Mirrors to Windows: The Artist as Woman’?

I only saw the film for the first time last weekend. It was being shown at the Royal Academy to celebrate International Women’s Day. It was really amazing to be part of such a huge project featuring ten artists including me, the others are: Maliheh Afnan, Alice Anderson, Helaine Blumenfeld OBE, Jodie Carey, Susan Collins, Nermine Hamman, Charlotte Hodes, Almuth Tebbenhoff, and Rose Wylie, artists who are all at different stages in their lives and careers. I actually found it quite emotional seeing it. I have been working with filmmaker, Susan Steinberg on it for about four years, so some of the footage is from a while ago. It really took me back to that time in my life. It put the idea of making art into a life context rather than just a momentary one. Often you can get flustered in the moment, rather than thinking, I am going to be making work for the rest of my life and this is just a snap shot.

Click here to watch the ‘Mirrors to Windows’ trailer: https://vimeo.com/93396353 

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[artbarter-blog]

Sarah Lederman is one of those artists who is destined for a bright future ahead of her, being selected to showcase her work in the  'Anticipation" exhibition in the Saatchi gallery in 2008 solidified her ascension in the art world. In 2009 she went on to win the Catlin Art Prize further showing her testament to the arts. Her works are a misconstrued collection of childhood fantasies recreated in painting that are built up and around the themes of skin and containment. At first glance her works are hauntingly doll-like with awkward gestures and pale skin, however upon further inspection they are dripping and fluid showing the woman in a state of permanent transition.

Her latest collection of painting will focus on the siren and water in her premier London exhibition at the ROLLO Contemporary Art opening on the 18/5 till 30/6.

[shinyslingback-blog]

Sarah Lederman - Girl on Chair, 2008 - Oil on canvas

[lyssahumana]