Sarah Staton uses materials’ affective dimension – their abilities to trigger associations and psychological responses – to supplement the established modernist coupling of form and function with a third term, feeling – an important but elusive texture for sculpture, public art and urban design.
Through allusions to utilitarianism, and an exploratory use of synthetic and natural materials, she creates spaces and objects that are marked by their socio-economic reality, seeking a modest purpose – to enable revelry and reverie.
Exhibitions include ‘Studio eine Phantastik’, Shedhalle, Zurich, CH: ‘#merrymerch’, Domo Baal, London, WC1: ‘On Paper’, British Council Travelling Exhibition, museums across UK and Scotland: ’Fish Finger Sandwich’, for Art Night with Grad London: ’SupaStore Human/We are the Product’, Dikeou Pop Up, Denver, Colorado, USA: ‘House of Ferment’, Hauser and Wirth, Somerset: ‘SupaStore Air/The GeoPolitics of Monetized Airspace, I meet you at the Gucci concession at 4, Fox Fur Hat’, duo exhibition with Martha Rosler, Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis, USA.
Public commissions include ‘Acton. Hammersmith and Fulham – 3 sites on the London Super Sewer’ 2017-2020, ‘Alphonse’ Milton Keynes 2019, ‘Edith & Hans’ 2016 for University of Bristol, ‘Bella & Max’ 2015, Teesside University, ‘Esperanto of Currency’ 2015, filet, London, ‘Steve’ 2014, Folkestone Triennial.
Sarah Staton is Senior Tutor in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art.