Fragments Aligned
Sohrab Crews’ experience of a range of different geographical and cultural contexts has had a strong bearing on his work, as has his significant interest in post-war European avant-garde art, American painting and sculpture, and mixed-media practices of all kinds. His own work manifests the recurrent themes of order and control, structure, colour and expressive intensity, notably through his ongoing experimentation with a wide range of ideas, mediums and techniques.
Ego Grave, 2006, 6 x 8 feet / 183 x 244cm, Oil, acrylic and aluminium paint-collage on canvas on panel with sheet aluminium and gravel.
Always unravelling, Crews’ works are a visual mediation on the human desire for order.
Giving visuality to the complexities of life and the wider systems we live in these works offer an alternative visual order uprooting all that has come before.
Starting within his sketchbook, Crews’ ideas first find formulation as drawings and prose. It is here that Crews sits amongst his mind allowing his thoughts and reflections to play out before they find their place as visual realisations. In a flash of geometric shapes and bold colours, fragments of text, materials and memories extend upon Crews’ sculptures, drawings and painting-collages. Materials are tirelessly collected and constructed into an ensemble of distinctive and irregularly shaped fragments. Words, gravel, graphite and paint are just some of these materials that Crews plays with to embed each fragment with its own narrative. The act of assembling, with its careful displacement and arrangement of each fragment imbues an intense energy into both the individual fragment and its spirit as a collective.
Mother of God, 2003, 168.5 x 182.5cm, Oil and acrylic paint-collage with photographic collage on canvas, gloss varnish.
Crews seeks to construct a distinctive visual language, one that draws on and departs from both his previous works and the art historical canon. The evolution of his works opens up before us as this exhibition traverses his practice from earlier pieces such as Mother of God, 2003 to his most recent painting Torn Hero, 2024. Decades spent ambitiously disentangling the world around him, Crews’ works are a visual testament to the contemplation of the primal aspects of life – death, joy, sex and pain – and, by extension, the essence of art itself.
Torn Hero, 2024, 6 x 8 feet / 183 x 244cm
Oil paint-collage on aluminium panel with corrugated cardboard, Fabriano paper, metallic wallpaper and graphite.
Employing a sequence of 16 four letter words, typically in a column format, words such as Faux, Copy and Play envelop the works as Crews’ poetic word- play amalgamates with their textured surfaces. This careful selection of words is combined with the use of found objects such as walking sticks and ceramic cats unearthed in local charity shops, creating a hybridity of material and word that relays discerning reflections on capitalism, over-consumption and the tyranny of advertising.
These wider reflections sit in dialogue with autobiographical elements that run throughout, with works such as Now Your Name is Sam, 2023 speaking to Crews’ personal experiences with identity, patriotism, death and survival.
Erika Dovey, 2025
Now Your Name Is Sam, (The Liar), 2023, 35 x 54 x 43 cm, Baseball cap, nine walking stick ends with ferrules, gravel, adhesive, papier-mâché, wood, screws, washers, oil paint.
Nervous Fracture, 2005, 105 x 140cm, Oil and acrylic paint-collage with photographic collage on canvas, gloss varnish.
Daub Pink Into Grey, (Ginger), 2022, 112 x 74 x 49cm, Armature wire, plywood, ceramic cats, stone cats, resin cats, lead, pine, wooden banister, wire, wire mesh, gravel, beads, paint-collage, plastic and ceramic fragments, glue, steel, graphite, Styrofoam, screws, brackets, cardboard, papier-mâché, adhesive, oil paint.
Deep Hole, 2012, 40 X 40cm, Ink on Fabriano.
“In a world where everything seems to be plastic, an isolated male with magnetic antennae attempts to navigate his personal demons. An old seahorse, trying to find a new home, carries a decorated white stick.”
Bird Hand Bush Sand, 2021, 60 x 80cm, Rust on steel with oil and acrylic paint-collage.
Dance Upon Nothing, 2012, 105 x 140cm x 18cm, Oil and aluminium paint-collage with nine projecting walking sticks, cork, card and adhesive with oil paint on aluminium on panel.
Elephant Ghost #4, 2011, 6 x 8 feet, 183 x 244cm, Oil, aluminium and acrylic paint-collage with oil paint on aluminium on panel.
Life Preservers, 2012, 40 x 40cm, Ink on Fabriano.
“This drawing attempts to describe the 2008 sculpture ‘Pasteurised Future’ by restricting myself to working with five-word sentences. The walking stick is an object of loneliness and limitation. Here two are brought together forming not only a pair, but also one understanding creature that observes life with explosive eyes. In our efforts to defend ourselves against the inevitable, we clutch onto humanised wood.”
Riddles Aligned, from left to right: Extinction Play II, The Fragmented Venetian, (The Survivor); Now Your Name is Sam, (The Liar); The Persian Construction, (The Angel); Swaggering Ape-Man, (The Fool); A Mind Elephantine, (The Clown), all 2023. For details of materials and dimensions please see the artist’s website: www.sohrab.co.uk
Enduring Riddles.
Music © Luminescent – Haruomi Hosono
Mr T #1, 2009, 60.5 X 78.5cm, Oil and aluminium paint-collage on panel.
This Ever Same Maze, (White), 2021, 82 x 44 x 38cm, Armature wire, plywood, ceramic cats, lead, wire, wire mesh, gravel, beads, plastic and ceramic fragments, aluminum, glue, graphite, Styrofoam, screws, brackets, cardboard, papier-mâché, adhesive, oil paint.
Thankfully Everyone’s Different, 2009, 40 x 40cm, Ink on Fabriano.
“A cross between a Mondrian combat camouflage and a butcher’s chart decorates a fierce primeval rhinoceros. Levitating, naive young spirits are influenced by the inane promises of contemporary advertising. Nearby two inverted walking sticks lie parallel, sharing blocks of Jarlsberg.”
Pack Life Into Time, (Black), 2021, 79 x 40 x 32cm, Armature wire, plywood, ceramic cats, resin cats, lead, pine, wooden banister, wire, wire mesh, gravel, beads, paint-collage, plastic and ceramic fragments, aluminum, glue, graphite, Styrofoam, screws, brackets, cardboard, papier-mâché, adhesive, oil paint.
Cute Predators.
Music © Paradise of Replica – After Dinner
Four-Letter-Words.
Music © Growth – Haruomi Hosono
…………………………………………….
Sohrab Crews in his Bath studio, 2024.
All images copyright and courtesy of Sohrab Crews
Text copyright and courtesy of Erika Dovey
All photographs and videos by Martin Tompkins Photography
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