Sarah Maple
Sarah Maple is an award winning multidisciplinary artist known for bold artworks that challenge notions of identity, religion and feminism. Her work spans a variety of media such as performance, painting, installation, collage and photography. Much of Maple's inspiration originates from her mixed religious and cultural upbringing as a British-Punjabi.
She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Kingston University and has exhibited her work internationally at galleries and institutions including Tate Britain, Golden Thread Gallery and York Art Gallery. In 2019, she was selected for Syllabus V, an independent learning programme run by Wysing Arts Centre. In 2020, she created a semi-autobiographical video work in the style of a sitcom which debuted on Sky Arts. For her most recent commission from the Decolonising Arts Institute at UAL, she will be artist in residence at Bradford Museum and Art Gallery and a newly commissioned work will be acquired by 20 UK art institutions.
Her work is also in collections such as Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Soho House and The Hyman Collection. In 2023, Sarah released a brand new book ‘Labour of Love’ with KochxBos publishing. Sarah lives and works in Sussex.
LABOUR OF LOVE at Middlesbrough Art Week
‘Labour of Love’ is a visual depiction of the 650 times our baby was fed over three months. There are 650 images of myself and my baby, each representing a feed, each with a hand finished element covering my face. The aim is to highlight the sheer volume of work that is expected of mothers and to challenge people to rethink the value of the time spent. I did live performance where I wrote the number of each feed on each individual piece. Raising a child is seen as a female task, not a real job. Thus unpaid and undervalued. Addressing this and rectifying the situation is the unfinished work of feminism."