biography
Sarah Tew was born in Cumbria in 1987; she now lives and works in London. She received a degree in Fine Art from Byam Shaw School of Art, Central Saint Martins 2009.
Tew’s work focuses on the moment of doing and her interaction with a medium, such as through painting, photography and performance. The relationship between material, body and space is brought into inspection. Her practice presents and documents actions or happenings which strip bare her processes and preconceptions of paint, questioning its representational and material values set within the historical context or ‘baggage’ of painting’s discourse.
Often exploiting the materiality of paint, Tew immerses herself in its entropic nature, concerned with how it presents its self, instead of how it is presented. By fluctuating within degrees of representation, she may find herself in one moment with paint up her nose, then in the next meticulously drawing a nose.
Exhibitions
2011 Ebbing, Solo Show, La Scatola gallery, London
2011 The Time is Now, La Scatola gallery, London
2010 Rhizomatic, Departure Gallery, London
2010 All Systems Go (performance), Departure Gallery, London
2010 Unusual View, Oh! Art Gallery, Oxford House, London
2010 In Derwent (performance), Derwent Water, Cumbria
2010 Winter Exhibition, Theatre by the Lake, Cumbria
2009 Stuffs, Matisonn Burgin: Shoreditch Space, London
2009 Degree Show, Byam Shaw School of Art, London
2008 Liberating Lives, Mall Galleries, London
‘UNTITLED’ IS A PIECE MADE FOR THE SHOW ‘THE TIME IS NOW’
Sarah Tew plunges herself body and… body into her paint as she works – just watch her video when the paint sloshes all over the place, and over her. Tipping another gallon of water into her tempera powder, she revels in creating the material as the paint sprawls across the floor, mercifully on to adhesive film, and on to pieces of paper, so they are at play horizontally and then vertically. Ahead of the opening night, through the wide windows of the gallery she could be seen every evening for a week, from 5pm to midnight, creating a work en scène. She enjoys the vibrancy of it all, seeing “the physicality of me, and pushing the boundaries of myself by setting up these processes.” JAMES BREWER
Sarah Tew [High Res] from blunt films on Vimeo.
works available
Untitled, Tempera on paper, 300 x 200 cm, 2011,
Dewent, frame 1,2,3, Watercolour on photographic paper,12.7 x 17.8 cm, 2011,
These works belong to a series of twenty postcards, each of them is an unique piece. Works can be viewed by appointment. To view the whole series and for more information, please email us on:
[email protected]
