Lonely Figure. 2019
Seashell. 2018
Even if you come to Jamaican-Canadian artist Tau Lewis’ work in the Hepworth this summer without any prior knowledge of what she is wanting to express some things will sing out to you straight away and lead you in the right direction. The soft textile sculptures are made from found, discarded or donated materials and they have been inspired by a painting of a coral reef that hung in the home where she grew up. Her work has personality, humour and soul. Look into its eyes and you will see that it has a past. It is both melancholy and celebratory. You can look into them and feel their joy and pain. They have energy, as she wants them to have, and they carry the weight of their past.
They have been made as a tribute to and a celebration of her ancestors lost at sea during the slave trade transports. Their souls have been joined with the sea and perhaps altered and cleansed by it. There is a victory here, snatched from suffering. As someone who spends a lot of time on a beach I was reminded of flotsam and jetsam but these works are not dead things that have been washed in by the tide. They may carry the burden of their past but they are still defiantly alive. The manta ray is leaping up joyfully- as they do in life- and the faces of Seashell and Lonely Figure look back at you calmly, speaking silently of what they have been through.
Really lovely work which has a clear, confident message but most of all it has soul.
Devil Ray 2019
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