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. Crawford paints and sculpts her subject from life while drawing from her inner world. Her creative process combines observation, memory, imagination and subconscious elements. 

She has recently been creating figures in states of fragment and emergence exploring the interplay of figuration and abstraction; presence and absence; permanence and impermanence. She creates a sense of stillness, solitude and timelessness in her works, drawn to these qualities as a pathway to connect with the inner self and the greater. Themes of embodiment, the enduring search for self, and the metaphysical are threaded through her works.

Her exploration of the human form as landscape seeks to connect the human experience 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. Early handprint cave drawings resonate with Crawford as metaphors for the human condition, conveying our desire for connection, search for meaning, and attempt to give form to the ephemeral. Her work explores these timeless themes in a contemporary context.

At present she is working with the raw, natural textures of charcoal, linen and oil, and a muted palette. She is similarly drawn to chiaroscuro that emphasises shades of dark and light. In her bronze sculptures, she is drawn to work 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 Group 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