Tau Lewis x 52 Walker: See the True Work of Angels | March 7—April 4

This online presentation will debut new prints and sculptures by the New York-based artist Tau Lewis, whose colorful, totemic forms suggest mythical territories beyond our own. In the conception of these forms, Lewis develops identities and narratives in an intermediary world that implicates our ancestral pasts, spiritual and cultural similitudes, and multiplanar existences.

Tau Lewis, 2022. Photo by Hannah Price

While best known for her sculptural installations that include large-scale fabric figures and masks, a group of which were recently on view at the 59th Venice Biennale, here Lewis has translated her propensity for world-building into a vibrant and dynamic screenprint. The first-ever print made by Lewis, See the True Work of Angels (2023) was produced in collaboration with Brooklyn-based fine arts publisher Du-Good Press as part of an ongoing series of prints relating to 52 Walker’s exhibition program.

Tau Lewis

See the True Work of Angels, 2023

Twenty-two-color screenprint on Coventry Rag paper

20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Framed: 24 x 20 inches (61 x 50.8 cm)
Edition of 30, 6 AP

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“The true work of angels is to burn everything down so that it may regenerate.”
Tau Lewis

Tau Lewis, See the True Work of Angels, 2023 (detail)

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This group of unique hand-dyed and hand-sewn vines—composed of recycled leather, silk, and fabric scraps that are variously dyed and painted—relates to a monumentally scaled mask titled Saint Mozelle (2022) that debuted in Lewis's 2022–2023 solo exhibition Vox Populi, Vox Dei, at 52 Walker.

For Saint Mozelle, Lewis was inspired by lotophagi, the “lotus-eaters” of Greek myth that originated in the Odyssey. She sees Saint Mozelle as a “tutelary deity and a sanctuary,” representing a similar state of serenity and calm.

Tau Lewis

Saint Mozelle Vine #21, 2022

Recycled leather, recycled fabrics, acrylic, and coated nylon

96 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches (245.1 x 21.6 x 5.7 cm)

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Lewis has described her Saint Mozelle Vines (2022) as the figure's “prolongations … which grow out of the mouth and grooves and folds of Saint Mozelle’s skin,” providing the figure with an “omnipresent physical form [that is] never in one place and always in communication with the earth and the aevum.”

Tau Lewis, Saint Mozelle Vines, 2022 (detail)

Tau Lewis

Saint Mozelle Vine #18, 2022

Recycled leather, recycled fabrics, acrylic, and coated nylon

84 x 7 3/4 x 3 inches (213.4 x 19.7 x 7.6 cm)

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Tau Lewis, Saint Mozelle, 2022. © Tau Lewis

Installation view, Tau Lewis: Vox Populi, Vox Dei, October 28, 2022–January 7, 2023, 52 Walker, New York

Tau Lewis, Saint Mozelle, 2022 (detail). © Tau Lewis

Inspired by the contemporary work of Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, classical Greek and Roman mythology and drama, science-fiction stories, and angelology—the theological dogma concerning the study of angels—Lewis expands the narrative and world-building possibilities of her own characters.

Tau Lewis

Saint Mozelle Vine #11, 2022

Recycled leather, recycled fabrics, acrylic, and coated nylon

86 x 7 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches (218.4 x 19.1 x 8.3 cm)

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“Lewis transforms foraged textiles and artifacts through painstaking processes of sewing and quilting into imaginary talismans and magical beings who inhabit sci-fi worlds.”
M. Weisburg, Biennale Arte 2022: The Milk of Dreams

Tau Lewis, Saint Mozelle Vines, 2022 (detail)

Tau Lewis

Saint Mozelle Vine #2, 2022

Recycled leather, recycled fabrics, acrylic, and coated nylon

63 x 4 1/2 x 3 inches (160 x 11.4 x 7.6 cm)

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Tau Lewis

Saint Mozelle Vine #25, 2022

Recycled leather, recycled fabrics, acrylic, and coated nylon

99 1/4 x 8 1/2 x 3 inches (252.1 x 21.6 x 7.6 cm)

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The Saint Mozelle Vine (2022) series builds on an ongoing body of work that conjures a fantastical parallel universe of the artist’s making, known as the Realm of the T.A.U.B.I.S. In 2020, Lewis transformed reclaimed clothing and fabrics into an expressive portrait as part of her sculptural installation, Symphony (2021–2022), at the National Gallery of Canada.

Tau Lewis, 2022. Photo by Hannah Price

“I’m interested in how I can honor and continue diasporic practices of art-making, which have been labor intensive and very focused on recycling and burning their own energy into the object.”
Tau Lewis

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