Sangeeta Sandrasegar, Untitled 8. (Weinblätter und Sippe), 2024

Continuing Sandrasegar's investigations into the historical, cultural and political life of the production of natural colour, 2 years focusses upon Madder Red.

Madder is derived from the root of the rubia tinctorum, rubia peregrina or rubia cordifolia. Once the roots of these plants are dried, pounded and sifted they yield a warm orange-brown that appears to have been used to create red across varied ancient civilizations. Fabric dyed with madder was recovered from the archaeological site at Mohenjo-daro, India and in Tutankhamen’s tomb, Egypt, and recorded by Dioscorides and Pliny the Elder in the classical world. In ancient China and Korea madder red is central to a belief system that certain colours have numinous powers - a supernatural force. This relates to the Japanese belief that plants are inhabited by a spirit kodoma which influences the colour the plant produces. Plants grow by the power of their kodoma and in medicinal plants this must be particularly strong as they help to overcome the aratama (rough spirit) of illness. Many of the rubia cordifolia were both dye and medicinal plants, and in ancient and medieval times madder was employed as a medicinal treatment for amenorrhea (failure to menstruate). The bones of animals that feed upon madder plants become stained and this effect was used by 19th-century physiologists to trace bone development and to study the functions of various cells involved in those processes. As Mary McClintock Dusenbury writes: ‘able to heal illness and mysteriously produce vibrant colour(s) from nondescript bits of bark or root, these plants were believed to hold formidable powers’.

Employing natural dye methodologies this body of work consists of hand-dyed and hand -painted mordanted lengths of khadi fabric in madder. This is the artists most biographical and personal body of work produced to date and deals with the last two years of her familial environment – her marriage and birth of a daughter, the death of her father, the loss of her mother to dementia and the ongoing ties she holds to two sisters.

The painted imagery references the Batik painting styles of Malaysian and Indian textiles. Images that locate the artist’s early childhood in seaside Kuantan and framed the family’s households across Malaysia and Australia in tablecloths, fabrics hangings and porcelains her mother collected.

Consciously speaking to the processes that sit within the production of the pieces these works are a reflection and mediation upon female labour and the role of the artist. Where terminology such as resists and mordants literally speak to the bonds and resistances contained within families. Similarly, the importance and process of time inherent to creating dye baths, the washing and drying of material as well as the stitching and painting form a cathartic process of contemplation that lies at the core of the project. Across all the works the mark of the needle is evident in the small pinholes, these combined with the painting and cutting connects this new body of work to previous projects formed from the cutting, piercing and painting of paper.

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Sangeeta Sandrasegar