Tau Lewis The ways of the underworld are perfect

Having embraced experimental practices in recent years, Lewis has crafted a less controlled, more playful approach to her mask-making in this display. Conceived through this free-flowing process, the sculptures remain characteristically ripe with colour and rich in labour-intensive techniques. Beginning with only a colourway – from vibrant natural pigments extracted from beetroot and hibiscus to warm, rust-imprinted and turmeric-stained textiles – Lewis then absorbs herself in the details. Working on a smaller scale allows her to push her experimentation further, tinkering with texture, repurposing leather and beads, cultivating her application of precious fragments from earlier projects to form the strange assemblages. Lewis’s use of recycled and found fabrics mirrors the process of renewal imbued in her sculptures: discarded remnants become finite resources of inter-woven histories, narratives and myths, echoing the new beginnings instigated by retrograde movements.