Southern Stars is proud to present its inaugural exhibition showcasing works by artists Delia Cancela, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar and Salome Tanuvasa for the first time in Britain.
Curated by Gabriela Salgado and hosted by Kunstraum.

Southern Stars is thrilled to announce its inaugural exhibition, golden daughters of the sun, a show focused on women empowerment that explores their bond to nature as an act of resilience and spiritual balance. The selection of works grapples with issues ranging from decolonisation to ritual and labour.

This exhibition is the first in a series of curated programmes by Southern Stars in London pop-up spaces before establishing a permanent location in 2022. On this occasion, we are delighted to present a selection of recent and commissioned works by three outstanding women artists: Delia Cancela (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina), Dalila Dalléas Bouzar (b. Oran, Algeria) and Salome Tanuvasa (b. Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand).

Delia Cancela presents several drawings from the series Women and Nature. The works' delicate materiality contrasts with the portrayal of assertive women, whose bodies appear intimately entangled with natural elements. Their naked bodies are free of adornments, like goddesses' avatars. The artist's words, 'women are the future', imply that the future depends on our cooperation with nature. She represents these relationships by synthesising women's bodies' intimacy with natural phenomena, creating extraordinarily hybrid creatures with a deliberately streamlined drawing technique.

Dalila Dalléas Bouzar recent works combine portraiture and performance to expand painting to her own skin and then capture her painted body in the self-portraits and My Abode series. The complementary move between the two mediums brings this process full circle. It also channels her inner visions that confront established Western art hierarchies regarding black and brown bodies. The female body is central in her work as a claim: "to question the status of women is to undermine the entire system of domination. To change the societal paradigm, we must free the female body."

Salome Tanuvasa presents two large-format textile banners exploring the interconnectedness between drawing, painting and textile design. Employing abstract mark-making and colour patterns involving hand stitching and cutting, she weaves a critique of the textile industry and its labour conditions, frequently located in domestic and sweatshop environments and mainly performed by women. In doing so, she acknowledges the value of family and inherited knowledge systems, focusing on the unique natural environment of her home in Aotearoa New Zealand and her ancestral roots in the Pacific islands of Sāmoa and Tonga.

Press or contact for enquiries: contact@southernstars.art