Edited with text by Jeffrey De Blois. Foreword by Jill Medvedow. Conversation with Lonnie Holley, Tau Lewis.
The first monograph on Lewis' sculptural practice inspired by the material inventiveness of Afro-Atlantic diasporic traditions
Published with Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
This is the first monograph dedicated to the sculptural practice of the Canadian artist Tau Lewis (born 1993). Lewis transforms found materials into intricate soft sculptures, quilts, masks and other assemblages through intensive processes such as hand sewing and carving. A self-taught artist, Lewis’ practice is directed at healing personal, collective and historical traumas through the repetitive forms of creative labor she employs. She forages for materials charged with meaning—old clothing and photographs, as well as driftwood and seashells—which she often collects from her surroundings in Toronto, New York or outside her family’s home in Negril, Jamaica. Lewis’ upcycling relates to forms of material inventiveness practiced by diasporic communities, wherein working with objects close at hand is a reparative act to reclaim agency. Throughout, Lewis’ interest lies in honoring and advancing these diasporic traditions and exploring, as she has said, “the transference of energy and emotion that occurs when an object is made by hand.”
"Knot of Pacification," 2021, is from 'Tau Lewis.'
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Made from recycled leather, seashells, sand dollars, acrylic paint, PVC pipe, galvanized steel, muslin, and recycled poly fibers, Mutasis Moon (2021) is reproduced from new release Tau Lewis, published to accompany the exhibition opening this week at ICA Boston. Book collectors take note: this is the first monograph on the thirty-year-old Jamaican-Canadian artist whose sculptural assemblage addresses Afro-Atlantic diasporic traditions. Of this particular work, ICA Boston curator Jeffrey De Blois writes, “Mutasis Moon stands tenderly with arms outstretched as if waiting for an embrace, a figure of hope and transcendence. Made from found fabric remains, it is as if this being traveled through a portal and arrived, alive and listening. It is infused with spirit, and in its presence, we remember our own smallness, our own vulnerability. In that encounter, even as we move through expansive geographies, reverberating across space and time, through the world of associations drawn together by Lewis’s capacious work, we are ultimately brought into contact with ourselves. Within every work, like hidden objects, is an invitation to consider how we might conserve our own spirit, and how ideas of material transformation always relate to our own.” continue to blog
Published by DelMonico Books. Edited with text by Jeffrey De Blois. Foreword by Jill Medvedow. Conversation with Lonnie Holley, Tau Lewis.
The first monograph on Lewis' sculptural practice inspired by the material inventiveness of Afro-Atlantic diasporic traditions
Published with Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
This is the first monograph dedicated to the sculptural practice of the Canadian artist Tau Lewis (born 1993). Lewis transforms found materials into intricate soft sculptures, quilts, masks and other assemblages through intensive processes such as hand sewing and carving. A self-taught artist, Lewis’ practice is directed at healing personal, collective and historical traumas through the repetitive forms of creative labor she employs. She forages for materials charged with meaning—old clothing and photographs, as well as driftwood and seashells—which she often collects from her surroundings in Toronto, New York or outside her family’s home in Negril, Jamaica. Lewis’ upcycling relates to forms of material inventiveness practiced by diasporic communities, wherein working with objects close at hand is a reparative act to reclaim agency. Throughout, Lewis’ interest lies in honoring and advancing these diasporic traditions and exploring, as she has said, “the transference of energy and emotion that occurs when an object is made by hand.”
