Vardaxoglou presents 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 Tanoa Sasraku’s Terratypes, a recent body of work which draws on the artist’s personal and historical connection to the British landscape, and which was first exhibited at Spike Island, Bristol. Through this body of work, Sasraku continues her exploration of British geology and topography informed by her perspective as a bi-racial and lesbian artist, raised in the West Country.

Terratypes are unique, sculptural hybrids of painting, drawing, collage, printmaking, and textiles. Sasraku forages for million-year old earth pigments at various poles of the British Isles – Dartmoor, the Jurassic Coast and the Scottish Highlands – hand-rubbing these into sheets of blank newsprint, which are sewn, soaked and ripped, revealing past layers of pigment and pattern; the intersection of geological time and personal memory.

The process itself, involving laborious pattern cutting, recalls her Ghanaian heritage and in particular the artist’s relationship to her late father, whilst the fringing bordering each Terratype expresses the unique textile application of the Fante Asafo flags of coastal Ghana, fabricated by Sasraku’s paternal ancestors. Geometric forms printed onto the Terratypes’ surfaces reference electrical circuitry and the flow of a deep, earth-rooted energy whilst the tartan stitch patterns are influenced by Sasraku’s relationship with her Scottish partner. The result is mysterious, ceremonial-like objects weathered with centuries of materiality, presenting a new way of engaging the landscape.

To accompany the exhibition, a monograph on Tanoa Sasraku’s Terratypes will be published in November by Vardaxoglou, featuring contributions from Robert Leckie, Chiorstaidh Black, Ellen Greig, Wes Knowler, Tanoa Sasraku, and Rosalind Nashashibi.

In February 2023, Tanoa Sasraku’s large-scale sculptures, Liths, originally shown at Spike Island, will be presented at PEER Gallery, London. 

For further information please contact info@vardaxoglou.com.

Tanoa Sasraku Biography

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. A major solo institutional exhibition of her work took place at Spike Island, Bristol (2022), and Sasraku was included in Radical Landscapes at Tate Liverpool (2022); and Testament at Goldsmiths CCA, London (2022). In addition to her solo exhibition at Vardaxoglou, London (2022), Sasraku will have a solo exhibition at Peer Gallery, London (2023). In 2021, Sasraku was awarded the Arts Foundation Futures Award for Visual Arts.