b. 1982 Johannesburg, South Africa | London studio
Teniqua Crawford is a multidisciplinary artist. She recently exhibited in major group exhibition Breasts during the 2024 Venice Biennale at ACP Palazzo Franchetti. Her works are included in major private collections.
Her work primarily explores the human condition through the motif of the human form, presenting these enduring themes in a contemporary context. She is interested in the interplay between figuration and abstraction.
Crawford paints and sculpts her subjects from life while drawing from her inner world to combine observation, memory, imagination and subconscious elements. She is inspired by the energy shared between sitter and artist. Her artworks are hybrid images that blend an essence of self-portraiture and the muse that she draws inspiration from.
She has recently been creating figures in states of fragment and emergence. They explore embodiment and the enduring search for self. She creates a sense of stillness, solitude and timelessness in her works. Themes of the ephemeral; presence and absence; permanence and impermanence; and the metaphysical are threaded through her works.
Her exploration of the human form as landscape seeks to connect the human condition to the natural world. Her connection to nature is inspired by growing up along South Africa’s wild coastline. The prehistoric Middle stone-age caves in the area shaped her interest in the nature of existence and ancient mark making.
At present she is working with muted and sepia tones and the raw, natural textures of charcoal, linen and oil. She is similarly drawn to chiaroscuro that emphasises shades of dark and light. In her bronze sculptures, she works with patinas that evoke the raw surfaces of natural rock and stone.
Crawford received a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University and a Master of Fine Arts from Harvard University at the American Repertory Theatre, and the Moscow Art Theatre Institute [MXAT].
Selected Exhibitions
2024 - Breasts, ACP Palazzo Franchetti, Venice
2024 - Winter Exhibition, Everard Read, London
2023 - Summer Exhibition, Everard Read, London
2021 - Group Exhibition, Sladmore Contemporary, London
