This painting forms part of Robert Slingsby’s Archive of Unspoken Things, a series that draws directly from decades of fieldwork across remote regions of Africa, where he has documented and responded to traditional art, both ancient and living.

Depicting a view down onto a campfire table, Blood, Sweat & Tears evokes the artist’s deep immersion into communities, where, over food and fire, unscripted conversations unfold. These tables, often set under stars in the most unlikely places, become charged spaces: there are no gestures of invitation, being welcome is implicit, stories unfold and through that which can only be learned face-to-face, his archive begins.

A fine outline across the surface reveals a pegged animal hide, a subtle reference to the Nguni skins found across the Great Rift’s Omo Valley and beyond. In many of the communities Slingsby has worked with; including the Khoisan, Himba and Omo Valley peoples, hides are not only utilitarian, but sacred. They are sat upon, worn as aprons and loin cloths, feature in rituals, embellished as headdresses and line ancestral gathering spaces. The hide, like the table, becomes a site of memory, meaning and cultural osmosis.

Salt binds all these elements. It seasons the shared food, cures the hides, stains the skin, and crystallises the sweat, blood and tears of survival. Salt, here, is both literal and metaphorical: it speaks to what is essential, what is preserved and what is offered. It marks labour, sacrifice, continuity and reminds us that to "put food on the table" is never a neutral act. It is always part of a deeper economy of exchange, history and human connection.