On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions
FOUND AND RECYCLED TEXTILES are at the heart of Tau Lewis‘s practice. She makes labor-intensive sculptural portraits constructed with hand-sewing, quilting, and assemblage techniques. Her work explores memory, agency, and individual and collective trauma and healing. For example, recent works have considered the legacy of loss borne of the Middle Passage and what she terms “water as black geography.” For her latest body of work, on view at Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, Lewis employs imaginative myth making. She evokes outer space, envisioning an “ancestral otherworld” where the possibilities of blackness are unbound.
Toronto-based Lewis is participating in Prospect.5 New Orleans in November. A self-described, self-taught artist, she presented her first solo show outside North America at the 2019 Yorkshire Sculpture International at The Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire, UK. In December, Cooper Cole Gallery featured a solo exhibition of her work at Art Basel Miami Beach. CT
“Tau Lewis: Sparkle’s Map Home” is on view at Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, Ontario, Canada, from Jan. 26-March 22, 2020
FIND MORE about Tau Lewis on her website
TAU LEWIS, Detail of “The Octonaut (I can be my own hands to hold), 2019 (recycled fabrics, concrete, pipe, acrylic paint, metal globe, wire, stones, seashells, plaster, hardware, recycled poly fibres). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
Installation view of “Tau Lewis: Sparkle’s Map Home,” Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, Ontario (Jan. 26-March 22, 2020). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Detail of “The Octonaut (I can be my own hands to hold),” 2019 (recycled fabrics, concrete, pipe, acrylic paint, metal globe, wire, stones, seashells, plaster, hardware, recycled poly fibres). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Detail of “Crystal Rock and Shockwave, 2019 (recycled leather, plaster, concrete, acrylic paint, snail shells, seashells, wire, hardware, recycled poly fibres, pipe, stones, office chair wheels, wood). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
Installation view of “Tau Lewis: Sparkle’s Map Home,” Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, Ontario (Jan. 26-March 22, 2020). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Installation view of “Harmony,” 2019 (recycled leather, recycled poly-fibers, rebar, wire, hardware, seashells, stones, acrylic paint). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Detail of “Harmony,” 2019 (recycled leather, recycled poly-fibers, rebar, wire, hardware, seashells, stones, acrylic paint). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Installation view of “Thumper (Heartbeat of the Sun),” 2019 (recycled fabrics, acrylic paint, plaster, pipe, wire, hardware, seashells, recycled poly fibres). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
Installation view of “Tau Lewis: Sparkle’s Map Home,” Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, Ontario (Jan. 26-March 22, 2020). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Detail of “I heard a heartbeat down in the blackhole,” 2019 (recycled material, found metal). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Installation view of “Harmony,” 2019 (recycled leather, wire, recycled poly fibres, rebar, hardware, stones, sand dollars, seashells). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Installation view of “Sparkle & Sparkle’s map home,” 2018 (recycled fabrics, concrete, pipe, acrylic paint, metal globe, wire, stones, seashells, plaster, hardware, recycled poly fibres). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Installation view of “Sparkle & Sparkle’s map home,” 2018 (recycled fabrics, concrete, pipe, acrylic paint, metal globe, wire, stones, seashells, plaster, hardware, recycled poly fibres). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
TAU LEWIS, Installation view of “Sparkle & Sparkle’s map home,” 2018 (recycled fabrics, concrete, pipe, acrylic paint, metal globe, wire, stones, seashells, plaster, hardware, recycled poly fibres). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
Installation view of “Tau Lewis: Sparkle’s Map Home,” Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, Ontario (Jan. 26-March 22, 2020). | Courtesy of Oakville Galleries, Photo by Laura Findlay
