I've Lost My Footing Once Again
Worsted wool, rug yarn, cotton
145 x 90 cm
2021-22

Holding Thumbs
Hand-carved Imbuia
33 x 131 x 19 cm
2018

Revelation
Sapelle, LED, mild steel
182 x 276 cm
2016

We Never Trust Our Memories
Stormy blankets, MDF, Polyfoam
330 x 330 x 306 cm
2022

HELLBENT
Single-channel video
04:47 mins
2018

Not Good
Brick and mortar
350 x 85 x 21.5 cm
2021

Tiago Rodrigues

Tiago Rodrigues (b.1988, Cape Town) is a Portuguese-South African artist currently based in the UK, primarily working in sculpture. Rodrigues completed his BAFA (hons) in 2017 at The Michaelis School of Art in Cape Town, South Africa, where he received a distinction in Theory and Practice of Art. He has consistently exhibited work both nationally and internationally, including his solo show ‘GOOD GRIEF’ at SMAC gallery in 2018 (Cape Town), exhibiting in several group shows, art fairs, and having work included in Contemporary South African Art collections such as the Spier Art Trust’s Arcadia Collection in 2019.

My focus centres around acts of transgression, and the irrevocable shifts which result from these acts. A primary concern of my practice is the idea of pushing back against barriers, whether they manifest materially, ideologically, or psychologically. A reoccurring experience, that opulence can be found in dereliction. This brings me to a place of enacting a number of repetitive and highly laborious processes in order to locate a formal beauty in subverting signifiers of violence and control. I’m interrogating language and objects as a concept of surrender and the intention behind memorialisation and devotion. Focusing on a personal narrative of loss, I’m trying to understand the distinction between concession and apathy. It’s about sadness, being lost, and feeling isolated. How do I lose something I never had?