Tau Lewis was born in Toronto, Canada, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Lewis creates theatrical installations by hand-sewing, carving, and assembling found materials and objects; each sculpture is conceived as a character in part of the artist’s ongoing world-building project, taking narrative inspiration from myth, literature, poetry, music, and spirituality.

Lewis begins the process of creating work by collecting used fabrics and materials from her surroundings and housing them in her studio—such as worn clothes and fabrics, leather, photographs, and elemental forms including driftwood and shells—absorbing their animistic qualities and memories to develop a relationship with them over time, before she utilizes them in her work. She transforms these simple materials into elaborate soft sculptures, masks, and other assemblages, hand-sewing, carving, and using other analogue forms of making. Her work is situated in a long lineage of Black cultural production, including artistic mentors and peers such as the Gee’s Bend Quilting Collective, Lonnie Holley, and Simone Leigh.

Solo exhibitions include newly commissioned work for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2024-2025; Sadie Coles, London, 2025; David Zwirner, Los Angeles, 2025; 52 Walker Street, New York, 2022-2023; and National Gallery of Canada, 2021-2022. Group exhibitions and projects include presentations with Art Fund, New York; MoMA PS1, New York; New Museum, New York; Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK; the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga; and the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto. Lewis was included in the Venice Biennale, 2022, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani and Prospect.5 Yesterday we said tomorrow in New Orleans, 2021-2022. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include Brandts Museum, Odessa, Denmark, 2026 and Tramway, Glasgow, 2027.