Filial Love is an intimate exhibition that brings together sculpture, video and wall-mounted works to explore nature through the lens of familial bonds. The exhibition is anchored by a freestanding central installation: a full-length, human-scaled, floral resin cloak, positioned in dialogue with a granite boulder. These elements form a meditation on protection, labour and enduring care, one of personal, generational and ecological.
Using nature as her canvas, Sykes embeds organic materials in resin to create works that are both ethereal and grounded, blending meticulous craftsmanship with emotional resonance. Her practice, widely celebrated for its innovative technique and poetic sensibility, is represented in international museums and private collections and has been described by critics as “a harmonious blend of the organic and the sublime.”
Filial Love draws deeply from the artist’s relationship with both her 85-year-old mother, Jessica, and her celebrated garden in Carlow. Throughout Sasha’s childhood, Jessica’s life’s work was constant tending – always with a bucket or pot in hand; a quiet, ongoing labour of care that continues even as roles subtly shift over time.
The works in this show incorporate plants forged, dried and embedded over two years. Inspired by the tradition of cloaks handed from mother to daughter at the time of marriage, the central installation functions as a surround: protective, enveloping and reassuring. Composed entirely of plant material from Jessica’s garden, it reflects time invested, craftsmanship and nurturing attention. The series of wall roundels and the Filial Love video piece extend the narrative, but the installation remains the emotional core, the embodiment of love, for a mother, for a daughter, and for the earth itself.
Artist Bio
Sasha Sykes (b.1976) is an Irish artist whose work investigates, manipulates and celebrates the material language of the natural world. Her sculptures, artworks and design pieces are composed from plants, flowers, algae and fungi that she collects from the local landscape. Her intensely beautiful handmade objects interrogate concepts of usefulness and play and explore how the human desire for both discipline and the fantastic meets and interacts with the wild genius of nature at the liminal boundary.
Sasha’s unique work primarily uses resins and acrylics to capture and re-present the world that grows around. Her architectural background infuses her work with a sense of rigour and informs her precise approach to form and composition, examining the concepts of history, place and relationships in a 21st century context.
Sasha’s work was most recently shown in the Kunsthammer exhibition at Lismore Castle, and Salon at the Armory in New York. She is the winner of the Golden Fleece Award 2025. She works from a sheep wool studio at the foothills of the Wicklow mountains.
Sasha’s work is in many public collections, including The National Museum of Ireland, The Office of Public Works, The Department of Foreign Affairs, The Department of Culture, Communications & Sport, and numerous global collections, including The Bank of America, Afiaa, Porsche Collection, and The Weinzierl Collection.
She is represented by Oliver Sears Gallery (Dublin) and Liz O’Brien Gallery (NYC).
Images: 01. Sasha Sykes, Reassurance, 2025, Hydrangeas, ferns, resin, acrylic, 75cmD, Image courtesy of the artist and Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin.
02. Sasha Sykes, Sanctum II, 2025, Rhododendron, hazel, moss, resin, acrylic, 40cmD, Image courtesy of the artist and Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin.
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www.sashasykes.com Instagram: @sashasykes
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