Tanoa Sasraku
Frieze London
11 – 15 October 2023
Vardaxoglou Gallery, Stand H10
Frieze London, The Regent’s Park, London
For Vardaxoglou Gallery's first presentation at Frieze London, the gallery will present a solo booth of new works by Tanoa Sasraku (b. 1995, Plymouth, UK).
The presentation will feature a new series of Tanoa Sasraku’s Terratypes, a body of work which draws on the artist’s personal and historical connection to the British landscape. Sasraku’s Terratypes are unique, sculptural hybrids of painting, drawing, collage, printmaking, and textiles. To create these works, the artist forages for million-year old earth pigments in locations like Dartmoor, the Jurassic Coast, the Scottish Highlands, and Ghana, hand-rubbing them into sheets of blank newsprint, which are then sewn, soaked and ripped, revealing past layers of pigment and pattern; the intersection of geological time and personal memory.
Through this new body of work presented at Frieze London, Sasraku expands her exploration of geology, memory and topography to include minerals foraged in spring 2023 from coastal Ghana, the homeland of her late father who worked there as a couturier. Informed by her experience of his death when she was a teenager growing up in the West Country, the artist here fuses together red iron earth pigments, foraged from mining regions of both Ghana and Cornwall, whilst using garment patterns to re-imagine her father’s body via the tools of his trade. The results are mysterious, ceremonial-like objects weathered with centuries of materiality, presenting a new way of engaging the landscape.
In addition to the presentation at Frieze London, Vardaxoglou will stage an exhibition of works by Sasraku at the gallery, titled Man Engine.
To request a Preview, please contact info@vardaxoglou.com.
About the artist
Tanoa Sasraku (b. 1995, Plymouth) lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include Liths at Peer Gallery, London; The Laboratory of the Future, Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice; We Are Floating in Space, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Cornwall (all 2023); Tanoa Sasraku, Vardaxoglou, London; Terratypes, Spike Island, Bristol; Radical Landscapes, Tate Liverpool; and Testament, Goldsmiths CCA, London (all 2022); A Tower to Say Goodbye, General Release, Chelsea Sorting Office (2021); Recession Grimace, Klosterruine, Berlin, (2020); Tanoa Sasraku: O’Pierrot, LUX Moving Image, London (2020); Resist: be modern (again), John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK; Nashashibi/Skaer – Thinking through other artists, Tate St Ives, UK (both 2019). In 2021, Sasraku was awarded the Arts Foundation Futures Award for Visual Arts.
Installation view, Vardaxoglou Gallery, Stand H10, Frieze London, 11 – 15 October 2023
Tanoa Sasraku, Pocket L, 2023. Newsprint, foraged Ghanaian earth pigment, digital pigment print, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater. 56 x 56 x 4.5 cm (22 x 22 x 1 3/4 ins)
Tanoa Sasraku, Sleeve Back L, 2023. Newsprint, foraged Ghanaian earth pigment, digital pigment print, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater. 83 x 38.5 x 4.5 cm (31 7/8 x 14 5/8 x 1 3/4 ins)
Tanoa Sasraku, Front Facing L, 2023. Newsprint, foraged Cornish and Ghanaian earth pigments, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater. 106.5 x 57.5 x 4.5 cm (41 7/8 x 22 5/8 x 1 3/4 ins)
Tanoa Sasraku, Jacket Front R, 2023. Newsprint, foraged Cornish and Ghanaian earth pigments, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater. 108.5 x 60.5 x 4.5 cm (42 3/4 x 23 7/8 x 1 3/4 ins)
Tanoa Sasraku, Trouser Back R, 2023. Newsprint, foraged Ghanaian earth pigment, digital pigment print, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater. 134.5 x 65.5 x 4.5 cm (53 x 25 3/4 x 1 3/4 ins)
Tanoa Sasraku, Jacket Back Lining R, 2023. Newsprint, foraged Cornish and Ghanaian earth pigments, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater, 60.5 x 55 x 4.5 cm (23 7/8 x 21 5/8 x 1 3/4 ins)
