Nebular rising: Sara Hayfa’s work takes inspiration from the night skies in Morocco
One night in Morocco in 2014, a young artist lay on the flat roof of her home and stared up at the stars in a clear sky. She thought about a documentary she had seen, about the use of eggshells in art and, although no one else she knew in the remote town of Sidi Slimane practised egg-shell art, she was inspired by the star-scape above her head to have a go at it.
Twelve years later, far from the sands of the Sahara, a modest handful of works have landed at the Turf Gallery in Croydon’s Whitgift Centre. You can see the stellar inspiration in Nebula Rising and in Solar Bloom, with their egg-shell light radiating out on a black background. The artist is Sara Hayfa, an “intuitive and mixed-media” practitioner.
“My direct inspiration,” she told me, “came entirely from the night sky, the stars and the cosmos.”
We talked about the delicacy of eggshells and their transformation into something more resistant and permanent as works of art.
Turf project: Sara Hayfa’s works are on display for one more week
“It’s true,” she said, “that eggshells are naturally delicate, but they undergo a fascinating transformation through my artistic process. Once I piece them together on the canvas, glue them down, they actually become incredibly durable. It is always surprising to people how these fragile, broken fragments can end up feeling as hard as thin rock.
“When an eggshell breaks, it can never be fixed back into its original shape. However, by gathering those shattered pieces and arranging them in a new way, they can be transformed into a mosaic that is incredibly beautiful and structurally stronger than the original, unbroken shell.”
If the eggshell mosaics are symbolic of toughness and strength, there is another piece in the exhibition that appears to be the opposite. A small piece made of mixed recycled materials that sits in a prominent space in the first-floor window of the gallery, looking out to the Whitgift mall, has a label that says: ‘This sculpture shows the hidden truth of an abuser. I used recycled rubbish to build the chaos inside, and a butterfly to show the ‘pretty mask’ they wear. In Art Therapy, this helps the abuser face their actions and start to change.’
Way to your self: Sara Hayfa’s works are often small, and always delicate
Art therapy? Was this autobiographical, I wondered.
Fortunately, not, it turned out. Hayfa told me that it was the result of her art therapy training, from “an exercise designed to simulate working with abusers, offenders or aggressors”.
She said: “In art therapy, we use exercises like this to help clients face their actions, confront the impact of their choices and begin to transform their behaviour toward their families and surroundings.”
Turned out, I didn’t need to walk on eggshells.
The sculpture was interesting, but I liked the eggshell mosaics best. Now I need to find somewhere to lie down and look up at the night sky.
- The exhibition is in its final week. It is completely free to attend and runs until Saturday June 27. The Turf Projects gallery space is open only Wednesdays to Saturdays, from 11am to 5pm. The address is: Project Space, Turf Projects, First Floor, 1046-1048 Trinity Court, Whitgift Centre
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