For the Sun Gods: Online exhibition of watercolours and monotypes by Tamsin Relly

27 February - 28 March 2021

  • Tamsin Relly - For The Sun Gods

    27 February - 28 March

  • Tamsin Relly - For The Sun Gods

    Zuleika Gallery is delighted to present For the Sun Gods, an online exhibition of new works on paper by London-based artist, Tamsin Relly (b.South Africa 1981). Relly’s multi-disciplinary practice includes painting, printmaking and photography and explores the preservation of arboreal and botanical environments through conservation, urban parks, and memory – be it personal, collective or held within the land.

     

    For The Sun Gods features a new series watercolours and monotypes, which considers the origins and global migration of wild and cultivated plants and flowers, whilst reflecting on the interdependent and reciprocal relationship we have with our vegetal world. Drawing from both found media imagery and first hand observation, Relly’s references include the Dahlia, indigenous to the mountain regions of Mexico and Guatemala, and the South African Pincushion Protea, a tropical flowering shrub native to the artist’s own home country. Working with the fluid and unpredictable qualities of painting and printmaking, these botanical forms break down and lose focus whilst retaining a vibrancy of colour, evoking memories of warmer summer days.

     

    Much of the series has been made in response to frequenting parks in London over the past year of the pandemic and a visit to Worton Organic kitchen garden in Oxfordshire between stretches of lockdown in 2020. During a period when our own movement as individuals has been so restricted, spending time in living green spaces is increasingly recognised as important for personal wellbeing, bringing into question the inequality within our communities around access to parks and gardens. 

     

    The works in this exhibition are shown with prices including VAT and unframed, please get in touch for information about framing.

  • I Am Plant (Pincushion 3), 2021 water based monotype on Somerset paper 300gsm 38 x 28 cm

    Relly’s most recent monotypes I Am Plant (Pincushion 1, 2 & 3), 2021, introduce an arched shape into her compositions. Suggestive of a window, bell jar or temple, the silhouette invites a sense of reverence for our living world, whilst serving as a reminder of the fragility of our planet's ecology and biodiversity, as we have an ever greater impact on it.

     

    "Dahlias first fully drew my attention whilst visiting a kitchen garden in the countryside last summer, between pandemic lockdowns. The petals and tubers are edible, they grow in an impressively diverse range of design and colour and bloom generously through Summer into Autumn. Whilst Dahlias have become a widely celebrated plant species and the pride of flower shows and domestic gardens worldwide, the wildflowers were first cultivated by Aztecs, who are said to have associated them with the Sun Gods. Reflecting on how in a globalised age of dispersed culture, flora and fauna, we can easily lose touch with the origins of things, I wanted to acknowledge these flowers' beginnings in the title of the series." Tamsin Relly.

     

    Above left: I Am Plant (Pincushion 3), 2021

    water based monotype on Somerset paper 300gsm

    38 x 28 cm

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  • Tamsin Relly is a London based visual artist working across a range of media that includes painting, print-making and photography....

    Tamsin Relly pictured in her studio. Photo by  Agne Kucinkaite

    Tamsin Relly is a London based visual artist working across a range of media that includes painting, print-making and photography. South Africa born, she moved to London in 2009 and received her Masters in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2011. Relly’s work has been exhibited and collected widely in the United Kingdom and internationally, appearing in group exhibitions at The Royal Academy of Arts, The National Maritime Museum and Oliver Projects in London; SMITH, Cape Town and Galerie Rue Visconti, Paris. She has had solo exhibitions hosted by The House of St Barnabas, The Place Downstairs and Brocket Gallery in London. Artist residencies include Arteles, Finland (2016), RE·THINK: Environment, National Maritime Museum, London (2015), Pocantico, Rockefeller Brother Fund, New York (2015), and The Arctic Circle, Svalbard (2014). 

    Relly’s work is held in collections such as Spier and Ellerman House in South Africa, and Hogan Lovells, Simmons Contemporary and the National Maritime Museum in London. Read more

     

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