ANNKA KULTYS GALLERY is pleased to present La Potion (HP) (2023) a video animation by French artist Sara Sadik (b. 1994). In addition to showcasing the single-channel video, the gallery is offering limited-edition A4 prints of film stills. This presentation is part of our new digital programme which will take place over the course of a year, and offer unique insights into new media artists using film, video animation, and digital media, as well as their latest technological explorations, including blockchain and advanced technologies such as AI. Our goal is to contextualise their work within historical digital art themes and promote their practices to both our digital and traditional art collectors.
Sara Sadik, La Potion (EH), (2023), this elegiac work of video art commences with a narrator who introduces a new videogame and like us, is looking at the ‘gameplay’ for the first time. However, this game features an avatar of himself. Stressed and anxious the avatar sets out on a walk looking for light and healing: “We will seek happiness since it does not come to us.” Like a magic drink, La Potion (EH) takes the narrator/avatar on a journey to find a way to feel better. Imagining constellations in the sky, walking through a beautiful garden, jumping towards the sea and swimming beneath the waves he feels soothed and calmed.
Sadik’s work seeks to make visible the lives of the Maghrebi youth of France and especially the second-generation emigres from former French colonies of North Africa, who make up 28% of the population of France. Often inspired by real people she knows in her hometown of Marseille the artist explores masculine identity through computer-generated fantasy scenarios. By placing her characters in an imaginary world, she takes them out of the physical reality of contemporary urban life with all its barriers and politics. As Sadik says, “the story exists elsewhere” and a new reality is created for them. Elevated from their overlooked lives, in her stories they become heroes. “Do you remember how we started the game?” asks the avatar - from a liminal psychological space of darkness full of anxiety and fear, at the conclusion the gamer and his avatar seemed fused in a moment of peace.
Artists’ film and video art since the 1960s has revolutionised the art world. Embraced as a new open-ended means of expression, moving image and animation allow artists to fully exploit the immersive qualities of time-based media. With Sadik the medium continues to evolve into new territory.
Visit the gallery website to watch the video: https://www.annkakultys.com/moving-image/
The online programme will feature weekly launches on Sundays over the course of 12 months. The first four artists to be showcased are: Jonas Lund (17 November 2024), Sara Sadik (24 November 2024), Oliver Laric (1 December 2024) and Lauren Lee McCarthy (8 December 2024).
CONTACT US
For all sales enquiries, please contact Annka Kultys at +44 74 555 61 887 (WhatsApp) or at [email protected] (email)
