Tamsin Relly
photo credit Agne Kucinskaite
All the Rivers, 2016. Water-mixable oil on linen. 160 x 120cm
Tamsin Relly is a London based visual artist who works across a range of media – including painting, print-making and drawing. South African born, she moved to London in 2009 and completed her Masters in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2011.
Relly’s practice reflects on the increasingly disrupted weather conditions of a shifting global climate and explores notions of wilderness, erased or constructed for industry or leisure.
Drawing reference material from both found media imagery and first hand observations, Relly works with the fluid and unpredictable qualities of painting and printmaking to present impressions of urban and natural environments in states of uncertainty or impermanence.
Research includes visiting and studying diverse locations such as receding glaciers in Svalbard in the Arctic Circle; displaced wildlife in zoos; and the fabricated oasis of Las Vegas and depletion of its surrounding water sources.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Forest Memory, Brocket, London, UK (2017)
Imagining The Amazon, The House of St Barnabas, London, UK (2017)
Jungle Snow, The Place Downstairs, London, UK (2014)
Selected Group Exhibitions
Polar Worlds, The National Maritime Museum, London, UK (2019)
Planet On Fire TM Lighting, London (Curated by Jo Baring, Ingram Collection), London (2017)
PIY Paint Lounge, Sluice Biennal, London (2017)
Wisdom and Nature PHILLIPS, London, Paris, New York (2017)
A Sense Of Place, Simmons Contemporary (Curated by Stuart Evans), London (2017)
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2013/2014/2016/2017/2018)
Tamsin’s work is held in the public collections of Yellowwoods Art, SA; Spier, Stellenbosch SA; Ellerman House, Cape Town SA; Holland, Johannesburg SA; Tokara, Stellenbosch, SA; and in private collections in South Africa, Europe, North America, United Kingdom and Australia.
Grow Back, 2017. Water-based monotype on Somerset 250gsm. 33.5 x 40.5cm.
Time At Hogchester Arts
Residency period - January 2018
"My room had a window looking out over the farm. I slept with the curtains open, and just before opening my eyes in the morning, I would have a sweet moment of anticipation as to what the weather might have brought that day: a clear view all the way out to the sea, rain or thick fog turned gold with the rising sun.
The fortnight I spent at Hogchester was an opportunity to slow time and be with nature. To feel the elements and rhythms of the day in a way I struggle to in the city, with its urban pace.
On contemporary culture’s relationship to nature, Wendell Berry points out that we exploit what we perceive merely to be of value but protect what we love. At a time of global ecological crises, it feels important to fall in love with nature in any small way that we can. And here I felt closer to the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms.
In the studio, I painted portraits of rocks I had collected on the near-by Jurassic coast. I used the sticky dark grey clay from the same shoreline, silt-y home of the fossils. Diluted with water, it is extraordinarily silky and fluid to work with. Through this series, I wanted to recognise the reciprocal relationship we have with our environment and the simple intimacy we can share with it." Tamsin Relly
