#something joyful

FEATURED ARTIST: Tau Lewis 

Tau Lewis (b. 1993) is a Jamaican-Canadian artist living and working in Toronto, Ontario. A self-taught sculptor, Lewis combines natural and synthetic materials to create simulations of living things. She considers the history and symbolism of each material, exploring the political boundaries of nature, identity and authenticity. Her work is bodily and organic, with an explicit strangeness and subtle morbidity. Her current practice relies heavily on her surrounding environment; she constructs sculptural portraits using found objects, repurposed materials and live plants sourced from urban and rural landscapes. She connects these acts of repurposing and collecting with diasporic experience and black bodies. Her portraits are recuperative gestures that counter persistent tendencies to erase or peripheralize black artists and narratives within Canadian art and history.

Lewis has exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Spring Break Art Fair in New York and New Museum, New York. She has received support from Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council. Recent and forthcoming exhibition sites include: Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; COOPER COLE, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, Oakville Galleries, Toronto, and Plug In ICA, Winnipeg.

Tau Lewis, Everything Scatter (Army Arrangement), 2017. Christmas cactus, soil, chain, wire, polyurethane, plaster, epoxy, chalk pastel, pvc pipe, paint can, rebar, cinderblock. 30 x 10 x 10 inches. Courtesy of the artist. 

Tau Lewis, something joyful, 2017. Plaster, wire, fur, leather, fabric, pillow stuffing, stones, human hair, acrylic paint, shopping basket, jute. 67 x 20 x 32 inches. Courtesy of the artist. 

Tau Lewis, georgia marble marks slave burial sites across America, 2016. Plaster, cement, acrylic paint, chain, high gloss finish. 18.5 x 12.5 x 8.5 inches. Courtesy of the artist. 

Tau Lewis, Untitled (play dumb to catch wise), 2017. Installation view at cyphers, tissue, blizzards, exile, exhibition at 8-11 Gallery, Toronto, Canada. dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. 

www.sculpture-center.org