Revealed Wednesday 16 June.

Sam Heath is an artist based in Bath. Regular drawing from life is an essential activity that informs the rest of his practice. He repeatedly depicts the same familiar subjects: his immediate friends and family, the fields near where he lives, his local pub.

Un/seen Work

I am a figurative artist who works from observation, photographic reference or memory. I never work from imagination, so a project asking me to respond imaginatively (from an audio recording) was daunting. I had hoped for a description but instead received ambiguous clues: dancing, ephemerality, the outdoors, and collage.

I’m delighted with the clear link between my work and the artist whose audio reflection I responded to. I knew Francesca was a dancer and imagined she might produce a digital collage of herself.
Painter Chantal Joffe once produced a funny, awkward photographic collage casting herself as all five women in Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. In a similar vein, the artwork I made for this project is a pastiche of Matisse’s The Dance: five naked self-portraits prancing around in an imagined landscape.

Taking part in this project, as lockdown restrictions have eased and summer has arrived, has been cathartic. No longer confined to my flat, I want to enjoy my freedom and have imagined myself dancing in nature enacting a celebratory, folk dance. Whilst far from subtle, I like that my artwork is playful, joyful and slightly irreverent.

The project has also given me the freedom to do something different and has served as a re-entry both into making and the art world.

Un/seen Piecemeal