Vardaxoglou Autumn Programme 2022: Betsy Bradley & Tanoa Sasraku
Vardaxoglou is thrilled to announce our forthcoming autumn exhibition programme featuring the first solo exhibitions in London by Betsy Bradley and Tanoa Sasraku, following each artist’s respective first solo institutional exhibitions in 2022.
Betsy Bradley
1 September––1 October 2022
Opens Thursday 1 September, 6-9pm
Betsy Bradley
Reef, 2022
acrylic and spray paint and sea water on voile
159 x 179cm
On 1 September 2022 we open an exhibition of new paintings by Midlands-based artist Betsy Bradley (b. 1992) who recently had her first solo institutional exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, which ended February 2022. A text by Hettie Judah will accompany the exhibition.
Betsy Bradley’s paintings are characterised by pulsating, vibrant colourful brushstrokes sweeping across stretched fabrics like voile and organza. This exhibition reveals the ways in which painting triggers the unfolding of multiple dimensions on a single surface and pushes the perceptual possibilities of the medium. Bradley’s surfaces, often translucent fabrics, dissolve the distinction between figure and ground and invite the play of light and space.
Betsy Bradley (b. Bath, UK, 1992) lives and works in the Midlands, UK. She studied for a BA in Painting at University of Brighton (2015); MA in Fine Art at Birmingham School of Art (2018); and enrolled on the Turps Correspondence Course, London (2019). Bradley’s first London solo exhibition will be held at Vardaxoglou, London (2022). A major recent solo exhibition dedicated to her work was staged at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2022). Recent group exhibitions include: New Art West Midlands/Coventry Biennial, Coventry, UK (2019); Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK (2019); Quad, Derby, UK (2019); International Project Space, Birmingham City University, UK (2019); New Art from Birmingham, IKON at Medicine Gallery, Birmingham, UK (2019); International Project Space, Birmingham City University, UK (2018); Gallery Be, Nagoya, Japan (2015, 2016); Community Arts Centre, Brighton, UK (2013). She has completed residencies at Eastside Projects (2019); Grand Union Gallery Residency (2018); Royal Drawing School Dumfries House Residency, Scotland (2018); Nagoya University of Arts Residency (2014).
Tanoa Sasraku
14 October––3 December 2022
Opens Thursday 13 October, 6-9pm
Tanoa Sasraku
Transformer (Terratype), 2021
newsprint, thread, graphite, Sound of Raasay seawater and foraged pigment
63 x 38cm
Opening 14 October 2022, we are delighted to present Tanoa Sasraku’s (b. 1995) first solo exhibition in London, following her major recent solo institutional exhibition at Spike Island, Bristol.
The exhibition focuses on Sasraku’s Terratypes: heavily worked sheets of blank newsprint which are hand-rubbed with foraged natural pigments in Dartmoor and the Scottish Highlands, where they take on geological and geographical information in ochre, graphite and manganese. The sheets are then stacked, cut and stitched together to form abstract geometric compositions, before being steeped in water. Shards of paper are then gesturally torn away, revealing layers that both expose and encrypt details about the materiality of the land, like microchips storing data or a clan’s tartan cloth.
A large-scale monograph on Tanoa Sasraku’s Terratypes will be published mid-November by Vardaxoglou, featuring contributions from a number of writers.
Tanoa Sasraku (b. 1995, Plymouth) graduated from Goldsmiths College (2018) and is currently enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools. Sasraku's practice shifts between sculpture, drawing and filmmaking, juxtaposing and performing British, Black, Ghanaian and queer cultural histories. A major solo institutional exhibition of her work took place at Spike Island, Bristol, 2022. Sasraku’s first solo exhibition in London will take place at Vardaxoglou, October 2022. Recent selected solo and group exhibitions include Radical Landscapes, Tate Liverpool, UK (2022); TESTAMENT, CCA Goldsmiths, London, UK (2022); O’Pierrot: Hands and Plaids (online), Alex Vardaxoglou, London (2021); 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 (2019); Nashashibi/Skaer – Thinking through other artists, Tate St Ives, UK (2019). Sasraku’s moving image works have been screened at the BFI Southbank, as part of the 18th London Short Film Festival (2021); Selected X, VideoClub online and touring (2020); Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Berwick-upon-Tweed (2019). In 2021, Sasraku was awarded the Arts Foundation Futures Award for Visual Arts.
