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ARTIST BIO

Catriona Towriss is a self-taught artist who creates sculpture, relief and site-responsive art from seed pods, tree bark and other foraged-materials. Born in the UK, Towriss lives and works in South Africa. Her work tells stories of the land and its life-forms. Through  her attentiveness, care and time-full creative process, she seeks to repair and regenerate reverence for the living world.

 

In 2020, after eleven years in public health research, Towriss transitioned into full-time artistic practice. Towriss has held solo exhibitions at the AVA gallery (2024) and Alliance Francaise (2022) in Cape Town. In 2023, she was shortlisted for Stauss & Co’s Cassirer Welz Award. Towriss has participated in artist residencies across South Africa, including Tankwa Artscape (2024) and Bodhi Khaya residency (2023).

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ARTIST STATEMENT

I create sculpture, relief and site-responsive art that tells stories of the living environment. My works are made using hundreds of seed-pods, tree bark-pieces and other raw materials, which I collect from the landscapes around me. Often using discarded materials from invasive species, my work sheds light on the ways that ruptured human-Earth relations have led to arrivals, proliferations, departures and erasures of life-forms and communities. 

 

My practice emerged out of the need to regenerate my own relationship with the living world and find an existence beyond dominant notions of time as money. The laborious processes of foraging and assembling materials ask for ritual, care and attentiveness, and connect me to deeper forms of Earth-time. Through drawing attention to the inherent creative and sustaining power of nature, my work seeks to repair and regenerate reverence for the land.

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