Liths was an exhibition of new sculptural works by Hackney-based artist Tanoa Sasraku. Merging digital and handmade processes, Sasraku works with sculpture, tapestry, print and moving image to explore place and memory in relation to British and Ghanaian history.
For her exhibition at Peer, Sasraku presented Liths, a series of works that comprised sculpture and print. Lining the gallery floor were five freestanding rectangular wooden sculptures. Embedded within the monolithic black cases are sheets of hand-made Awagami Kozo Natural Japanese Paper, each depicting enlarged scans of fragments of stitched and embossed ink and earth pigment-stained newsprint, representing elements of an ongoing series of smaller works that Sasraku calls Terratypes (2022).
Produced in parallel to the Terratypes series, Sasraku’s sculptural works presented at Peer acted as a framing device for the reproduced images as if now seen under a microscope. The thin, almost flesh-like sheets of Kozo paper subtly move and buckle under their own weight and moisture, each hosting a unique image of newsprint marked by Sasraku’s needle and embossing work, and stained with earth pigment foraged from Dartmoor, Devon, and Isle of Skye, Scotland.
Larger-than-human scale yet bodily in their stature, the Liths dominate the gallery forming a magnetic tension between each other, and directing the viewer through the space. Each Lith bares the marks of Sasraku’s process of making, one that is deeply embedded in personal affinities toward landscapes that represent both a possible threat, as well as provide relief to her body, and act here as a surrogate for Sasraku’s own image.
A series of talks, events, and workshops take place throughout Sasraku’s exhibition exploring themes of memory, place and tradition.
In conjunction with her exhibition at Peer, Tanoa has produced a new limited edition Scholar’s Rock, 2022, details of which can be found in our shop.
Talks, events and workshops:
Saturday 25 March 2023
Artist Tanoa Sasraku and curator and organiser, Eliel Jones discuss Sasraku’s exhibition at Peer in relation to her wider practice.
Biography:
Tanoa Sasraku (b. 1995, Plymouth) lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include Tanoa Sasraku, Vardaxoglou; Terratypes, Spike Island, Bristol; Radical Landscapes, Tate Liverpool; and Testament, Goldsmiths CCA, London (all 2022); 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; Nashashibi/Skaer – Thinking through other artists, Tate St Ives, UK (both 2019). In 2021, Sasraku was awarded the Arts Foundation Futures Award for Visual Arts and is currently enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools.
Tanoa Sasraku’s Liths series was originally produced as part of her solo exhibition Terratypes at Spike Island, Bristol and was commissioned and produced by Spike Island as part of the West of England Visual Arts Alliance programme, supported by Arts Council England.
Supporters:
Liths at Peer was presented with support from the Henry Moore Foundation and Peer Patrons and Network. With thanks to Vardaxoglou Gallery and Hoxton Hall.
Peer is an Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation and is supported by Hackney Council through a Voluntary Sector lease.
