On the Institute of Modern Artwork in Boston, Tau Lewis (beforehand) presents an enormous cosmology through which monumental, mythic beings herald in a brand new world. 5 figures stand almost 11 ft tall in draping clothes, their fingers positioned in distinctive gestures. With titles like “The Doula” and “The Reaper,” every bears a selected function as they loom over a big round quilt on the heart of the gallery ground.
From discovered materials and objects, Lewis created the towering sculptures for Spirit Stage, her first solo museum present within the U.S. The Toronto-born artist maintains a sturdy assortment of supplies in her Brooklyn studio, which she painstakingly stitches and sculpts into unearthly beings. These works proceed her curiosity in how objects maintain that means and reminiscence.
Her 2021 determine “Mutasis Moon,” for instance, is an alien-like creature with 4 eyes and turquoise fingers. Wrapped round a galvanized metal and PVC armature, the pleasant painted-leather determine stands with arms outstretched as if welcoming the viewer.
In Spirit Stage, remnants of clothes, muslin scraps dyed with rust, snakeskin, conch shells, and coral bone merge, transposing the supplies’ origins into new contexts. “The Doula,” for example, wears a darkish inexperienced, blue, and brown robe of leather-based and suede and is what the artist calls a “portrait of the ocean.” Conjuring the darkish depths of the ocean, the sculpture alludes to an area the place life and loss of life coexist.
The gold-outfitted determine is titled “The Deal with of the Axe,” which references the epigraph of Alice Walker’s 1992 novel Possessing the Secret of Pleasure that states: “When the axe got here into the forest, the bushes stated, ‘the deal with is considered one of us.’” Arms open for an embrace, the sculpture attracts on the tensions between the will for nonviolence and the battle for liberation.
On the heart of the figures is “The Final Transmission,” the sprawling quilt that radiates outward from a starfish on the heart. Small cloth panels adorned with glass, beads, and wire kind an elaborate patchwork, showing as an architectural portal to a different universe.
Spirit Stage is on view in Boston via January 20, 2025, after which it can journey to David Zwirner in Los Angeles. Discover extra from the artist on her web site and Instagram.
