Following their summer residency at Elizabeth Xi Bauer’s Deptford studio, Saint Takyi opened the doors to their evolving practice, sharing a new body of work in a studio tour led by EXB’s Artistic Director, Edward Sheldrick.
During the residency, Takyi has used the studio as a space to immerse themselves in investigations around figures, spirits, rituals and nature. Walking through forests and observing trees became an important part of this process, alongside research into ancient Egyptian imagery and the relationship between gods, bodies and vessels encountered at the British Museum. Across the works, bodies merge with twisting trees, suggesting a shared ecology between people, ancestry and the natural world.
“Looking at trees and walking through forests, being able to combine the ideas of trees with the ideas of people and spirits and that energy I feel, became released into the studio.”
The studio itself reflects this process of accumulation. Along one wall, Takyi has built a living archive of photographs, fabrics, plant images, books, historical references, sketches and notes, a resource bank that is continually added to and revisited. References gathered from walks through forests sit alongside archival imagery, art-historical sources, and fragments of ideas that emerge while painting.
The works emerging from the residency continue Takyi’s interest in the figure as a vessel for ideas and energy. Using their own body as a reference, Takyi photographs themselves in different positions before translating these poses into paintings, allowing other figures and forms to emerge through the process. “By physically releasing and putting yourself into positions, you are putting your consciousness into that space and focusing on it,” Takyi explains.
The residency has also marked a significant shift in Takyi’s painting. For the first time, luminous ochre grounds sit within ultramarine figures, while exposed passages of canvas become part of the composition. Working on a larger scale has allowed Takyi to expand the visual and material language first introduced in Two Shores, the 2025 duo exhibition at Elizabeth Xi Bauer alongside Ivan Moraes, while continuing their interest in mythology, spirituality, identity and world-building.
The studio tour offered an opportunity to encounter Takyi’s works at a formative stage, as the artist continues to develop this new body of work ahead of their forthcoming exhibition with Elizabeth Xi Bauer in 2027.
