Elizabeth Xi Bauer Gallery is delighted to announce the representation of London-based artist Saint Takyi.
Takyi’s multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, drawing and writing, constructing speculative worlds where mythology, spirituality and identity converge. Working primarily in oil on canvas, they create dimorphic figures that blur the distinction between child and adult, to explore ancestry, dual heritage and the fluid nature of selfhood. Rooted in a luminous blue, a colour both symbolically charged and seldom found in nature, their paintings evoke ephemeral humanoid forms that inhabit imagined histories and evolving mythologies, reflecting Takyi’s enduring interest in world-building and anthropological imagery.
Takyi graduated with an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2024, supported by the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship, following a BA in Graphic Design from the University of Derby and an Erasmus exchange at PXL MAD School of Arts in Belgium. In 2024, they were awarded the Ingram Art Prize, with their painting Emerging Pasts (2024) entering the prestigious Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art. Their work has been exhibited across the UK at institutions and galleries including MK Gallery, Studio 3 Gallery at the University of Kent, The Fitzrovia Gallery, Fleet Studios and Twilight Contemporary.
Elizabeth Xi Bauer Gallery first presented Takyi’s work in the duo exhibition Two Shores alongside Brazilian artist Ivan Moraes. The exhibition brought together two distinct practices united by a shared exploration of identity, memory and belonging, introducing Takyi’s symbolic visual language to the gallery’s programme. Their representation marks a natural continuation of this relationship as the gallery supports the next chapter of the artist’s practice through exhibitions, international opportunities and long-term development.
Alongside their representation, EXB’s Deptford Studio welcomes Saint Takyi for a summer residency. Takyi is currently undertaking their time in the studio as a site for experimentation, allowing ideas initiated in Two Shores to unfold into an ambitious new body of work. The residency has enabled the artist to work on a larger scale while expanding the conceptual and material language of their paintings through sustained research, observation and making.
During the residency, Takyi is developing an evolving body of work that explores the relationship between the human figure, trees and ritual, inspired by time spent walking through forests and research into ancient mythologies and the Egyptian collections at the British Museum. Here, figures become vessels through which histories and spiritual energies pass, while bodies merge with twisting trees, suggesting a shared ecology between people and the natural world. A shift towards luminous ochre grounds, layered with ultramarine figures and exposed passages of canvas, has also transformed the painting’s surface, embracing openness as an integral element of the work. These new paintings continue the themes of mythmaking, while moving towards an increasingly immersive vision that considers painting as both a ritual process and a space for collective reflection.
Elizabeth Xi Bauer looks forward to presenting Takyi’s work in the 2027 exhibition programme as their practice continues to evolve within the EXB residency.
Explore more of Takyi’s works here.
