Sarah van Sonsbeeck (1976, Utrecht, The Netherlands) studied architecture at TUDelft (MA) and art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (BA). In 2008 - 2009 she was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten,Amsterdam.
Fundamental to Sarah van Sonsbeeck's artistic exploration is the investigation of the formal and conceptual qualities of gold. She uses gold as a medium for minimalist works which engage in a dialogue both with their surroundings and topical issues. Taking the gold bar as a standard, the artist repeatedly shapes different states of the material in her works. As such, Van Sonsbeeck allows the gold to take on many different shapes and forms, from a puddle on the floor to a finely woven tapestry. Van Sonsbeeck succeeds in a critical as well as poetic artistic transformation of the historical foundation of our current financial system. For centuries, gold has been associated with wealth, power, and purity. Using gold as an artistic medium, she not only questions the value and worth of this material, but also of art itself.
Her work furthermore focuses on the thin permeable line between interior and exterior - without concern for the façade. This detour brings her to an investigation of the more immaterial side of architecture, in which she scrutinizes the small elements that determine how we live in our homes - the things the architects cannot control(such as the noise our neighbors make). She amplifies these elements and devises shields against them, but also welcomes the unpredictable and reveals the minute but intimate relationships between people who don't necessarily know each other. Sarah van Sonsbeeck practises architecture of the immaterial - though no less fundamental - kind.
She had solo and group exhibitions at the Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2020, 2017, 2014), Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2020, 2017), MAK Museum, Vienna (2019), Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018), De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam (2013), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2012), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2013), Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam (2012) Museum De Paviljoens, Almere (2009), Musem Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2011), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2009).