This powerful new exhibition explores maternal connections and the natural world
Sasha Sykes’ upcoming exhibition at the RHA features spectacular plants, dried and embedded in resin to explore nature through the lens of familial bonds.
Don’t miss Irish artist Sasha Sykes’s new show, Filial Love, at the RHA from February 13. The acclaimed maker – and recipient of last year’s Golden Fleece award – has been wowing the art world with her exquisite sculptures and works for some time now, with many pieces in public and global collections. Using innovative techniques and painstaking craftsmanship, she sets natural elements in resin to create pieces that are powerful meditations on the cycles of life and labour.
A multi-disciplinary show, Filial Love tells the story of Sasha’s mother, Jessica, and the garden she has created at Lisnavagh, the family estate in Carlow. “It’s about her relationship to gardening,” says Sasha, “her relationship with me and our relationship to Mother Earth.”
It features, among other things, a full-length human-scaled resin cloak of flowers, hand selected and dried by Sasha. Each flower reflects elements of her mother’s character: “I chose Clematis because it makes its own path, like my mother, who is quite ingenious,” she explains, “whilst Hellebores are strongly associated with protection and selfless care. Katsura’s leaves are heart shaped, a symbol of soft mothering, while Lady’s Mantle’s leaf form cups, holds, gathers. And Black Lace Elder symbolises protection: I am watching over you.”
There are also wall mounted works and a short film, which features her mother’s hands in various stages of work. “My memories of my mother are of her always working in the garden, of never stopping,” says Sasha. “We slowed that right down so the film feels like a meditation. Her hands are incredible – she’s eighty-five now and they are still working hard daily!”
The garden and indeed the estate has inspired Sasha for decades, with many of her sculptures, artworks and design pieces composed from the plants, flowers, grasses and artefacts there. Her studio is home to a vast amount of natural material, all in various stages of drying – a process that can take up to two years. She discovered the concept behind her work when she made her father a gift using straw from the estate, which she used to fill a Perspex cube.
How does her mother feel to be the focus of her work at this juncture? “She was quite shy about being the subject,” says Sasha, “but I think and hope it’s made her think about her own work in a different way. When people ask me about the show, they often assume my mother has passed, so I’m grateful this is happening while she’s still here, so she can be proud of what she’s achieved and what she’s passed on.”
The show doesn’t shy away from the bigger questions around legacy. “The series is asking whether that powerful flash of spiritual connection that the garden has provided between my mother and me can be replicated,” says Sasha, “in a time of climate anxiety, to all humans and mother nature.”
Filial Love opens from Feb 13 – March 29 at the RHA.
Sasha Sykes is represented by Oliver Sears.
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