Bread & Circuses, board, house paint, acrylic and metal leaf on plywood, the title piece from Sarah Hall Baqai’s exhibition. Note the harlequin balancing the letter ‘S’ on his foot
IN the words of Juvenal, the Roman poet circa 100AD, “give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt”.
Roll forward to Autumn 2026AD when York mixed-media, multi-disciplinary artist Sarah Hall Baqai adapted that title for her Bread & Circuses exhibition at where else but the Bluebird Bakery in Acomb Lane, Acomb, York.
As chance had it, Russells International Circus pitched up on Knavesmire in the week when she launched her show.
Sarah Hall Baqai assembling her Bread & Circuses exhibition at Bluebird Bakery, Acomb
“My work is inspired by traditional folk art and popular art forms, which include theatre and street performance, stories and decorative arts,” says Sarah, whose playful artworks draw on exuberant festivals and fiestas that bring people together with the aim of “delighting the senses and adding colour to life”.
Noted for her papier-mâché sculptures, paintings, collage and illuminated willow lanterns, Sarah has a particular interest in circus and fairground and folk traditions from around the world.
This has led to her, making lanterns and installations for Giffords Circus in Gloucestershire, as well as the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (Wakehurst), and making props and developing her sign-writing skills, along with behind-the-scenes painting and drawing the performers, at Fools Delight Circus, Lil Rice and Dave Cross’s dinner cabaret circus at Ham Court, Bampton, Oxfordshire.
Roll Up Roll Up…for Sarah Hall Baqai’s Bread & Circuses exhibition at Bluebird Bakery
“The slim format of many of the paintings echoes the traditional circus poster format,” says Sarah of her Bread & Circuses works, created at her home studio in Main Street, Fulford. “Also, the paintings are done on plywood, cut to size and then prepped for painting. I hand-build the boards on the workmate outside – part of my set-building skill set.”
Lettering echoing the Art Deco and Jazz Age of the Twenties and Thirties, graphic work celebrating York Minster and large willow lanterns in the shape of jugglers’ sticks are prominent in the new show too.
Raised in North Yorkshire, Sarah completed an art foundation course at Harrogate College of Art before training as a graphic designer at London College of Printing, graduating in 1989.
TA-DA!, by Sarah Hall Baqai, house paint and metal leaf on MDF
Composition, design, typography and letter forms have always significant in much of her work, but after a period of working in Andalucia, Spain, in the 1990s she began experimenting with working in papier-mâché to create sculptural forms inspired by the many fiestas held throughout the year.
Her years of working in Shoreditch and Amsterdam, along with travel to far-off places, inspired her work too, where paper, wire, found objects and other things, together with folklore and a desire to make you smile at the familiar or ordinary made different, have been central to her creativity.
Exhibitions and major commissions for large-scale installations in London and Paris fashion stores came her way, while her work has been commissioned widely and exhibited in the UK, France, the Netherlands and the United States.
Artist Sarah Hall Baqai, in harlequinesque attire, stands beneath her willow lantern juggling sticks as she raises a glass to the launch of her Bread & Circuses exhibition
Sarah, who moved back to Yorkshire in 2010 and last took part in York Open Studios in 2025, is exhibiting at Rise@Bluebird Bakery for the first time. Among the exhibits is the Cabaret series. “Recent travels to Berlin gave me food for thought,” says Sarah.”I’ve included a four-part Cabaret series which relates to the themes of escapism in challenging times.
“The opening lyrics of the musical Cabaret welcome an international audience to the Kit Kat Klub with signs in three languages, Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome and Fremde, Etranger, Stranger, painted in waxed gesso – a very opaque chalk point – on grey board, which mirror the Bauhaus designs.”
Look out for Box Act (acrylic on plywood). “It’s based on a contemporary contortionist performer, Bendy Em, from Australia, who squeezes herself into a tiny 40cm Perspex cube, the same dimensions as my painting,” says Sarah.
Box Act, by Sarah Hall Baqai, compressing Australian contortionist Bendy Em into a 40cm by 40cm painting, replicating the dimensions of the box into which she squeezes in her act
Twin Towers Of Human Endeavour (Anniversary Edition) is available in a limited edition of ten pairs. “In 2027 York Minster celebrates the 1,400th anniversary of its founding, dating back to the baptism of King Edwin of Northumbria in 627AD,” says Sarah.
“Inspired by the mass-produced ‘New York’ poster, I took ten of the posters, cut up and collaged, to create one ‘York’ poster. The similarities in the name and the architectural status and function of the buildings reflect the shift from religious to commercial power over the 450 years which separate their construction.
“Both cities are impressive, historic monuments of human endeavour in different ways and both are magnets of mass tourism, defined by their iconic buildings.”
Twin Towers Of Human Endeavour (Anniversary Edition), by Sarah Hall Baqai, available in a limited edition of ten
Sarah has printed an unlimited anniversary edition of Blue York too. “It’s a nod to Bluebird Bakery and Blue Note Records,which gave musicians complete artistic autonomy to rehearse, experiment and play what they wanted,” she says.
Summing up an exhibition rooted in Juvenal’s assertion that bread and circuses would provide distraction from more grave matters to prevent unrest and revolution, Sarah says: “Bread & Circuses represents glamour laced with all sorts of other elements, seeking escapism while Rome burns, which is where we are now.”
Fellow Yorkshire artist David Hockney passed away [on June 11], while Sarah was working on the title work, Bread & Circuses. “I was painting the legs when I heard the news, and I wanted to do an homage, so I painted the harlequin figure, without being too specific,” she says.
Wilkommen, waxed gesso on board, from Sarah Hall Baqai’s four-part Cabaret series on show at Bluebird Bakery
As for her love of circus and festivals, Sarah says: “There’s something about being in a muddy field, with the lights and the sequins, or watching a village pilgrimage in Spain or a fire festival in Valencia, where it’s all over in a blink of an eye. I’m so absorbed by it. Rather like ballet, circus skills can make something look effortless despite all the hours that go into it.”
Sarah concludes: “The circus theme is a fixture with me now. The day this exhibition comes down I’m back at the circus, at Giffords’ winter show at Fennells Farm, Lypiatt, just outside Stroud.”
Sarah Hall Baqai, Bread & Circuses, Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb Road, Acomb, York, until November 19
Circus Dogs, by Sarah Hall Baqai, enamel on steel