Satch Hoyt
Born 1957 in London, England
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
White Bay Power Station
Contrapuntal Passages of Us, 2021
acrylic, pigment on canvas
Feel Their Breath Vibrate in 6/8, 2019
acrylic, pigment on canvas
The Dream is Serial not Token, 2017
acrylic, pigment on canvas
The Calling in of the Silent Codes, 2019
acrylic, pigment on canvas
Score #1 & 2, 2019
acrylic, pigment on canvas
Tangled Migrations – Calvary –1, 2016
acrylic on canvas
Tangled Migrations – Calvary –3 (for Prince), 2016
acrylic on canvas
I Contemplate My Dharmic Journey, 2019
acrylic, pigment on canvas
On Galactic Paths of More Tomorrows, 2017
acrylic, pigment on canvas
Just one more Bridge to ride Crescendos, 2019
acrylic, pigment on canvas
Slave, 2009
silk, crystal button, wood, microphone grille screen, guitar strings, case lined with sonic fabric
Ice Pick, 2002
crystal glass, velvet lined case, metal key, soundscape, audio components
Detanglement Suite
hair combers
Michaela Angela Davis & LaTasha Nevada Diggs
Presentation at the 24th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and GoetheInstitut Australia and with assistance from the British Council
Courtesy the artist
Believing that music and sound are fundamental to the endurance of African peoples over centuries of oppression, Satch Hoyt has dedicated his career to preserving and progressing the songs of an all-inclusive Black cultural identity. Described as ‘sonic cartography’, Hoyt’s paintings map the past and future journeys of the African diaspora across history and geography. Informed by the artist’s research into colonial recordings of Black music, his paintings function as both cultural cartography and musical scores.
From the melodies that accompanied enslaved peoples across oceans to the imagined soundtrack of Afro-futuristic journeys, Hoyt’s practice works to ‘un-mute’ sound collections captured during the European colonial period, linking anthropological recordings to the sounds of contemporary Black culture. Presented in a musical case, the afro-comb, a symbol of defiance in the freedom movements of the 1960s and 1970s, becomes an instrument. Recording the sound of the comb brushing out Black afros, Hoyt crafts rich compositions loaded with ideas of resistance, empowerment and liberation.
Understanding that music can unlock untold and stolen stories, Hoyt’s work chronicles Black sound, at once a celebration and a commiseration, a chorus singing through time.
Satch Hoyt is a spiritualist, a believer in ritual and retention. Of Jamaican-British descent, Hoyt was born in London and currently lives in Berlin. A visual artist and musician, his diverse and multifaceted body of work – whether sculpture, sound installation, painting, musical performance, or musical recording – is united in its investigation of the “Eternal Afro-Sonic Signifier” and its movement across and amid the cultures, peoples, places, and times of the African diaspora. Those four evocative words (a term coined by Hoyt) refer to the “mnemonic network of sound” that was enslaved Africans’ “sole companion during the forced migration of the Middle Passage.
Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.