LONDON.- Vardaxoglou will present Tropical Ken, a new solo exhibition by current Turner Prize nominee Tanoa Sasraku. It is Sasraku’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and coincides with the Turner Prize 2026 exhibition on view at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA).

Tanoa Sasraku’s Tropical Ken is a series of new sculptures exploring the relationship between tropical leisure, militarism and colonial memory. Drawing on Mattel’s 1980s Ken dolls and the propagandistic ‘Army Ken’ released during the 1992 Gulf War, Sasraku brings together the visual languages of military uniform, tropical kitsch and Western adventurism. Disassembled combat clothing worn in conflicts across Vietnam, the Middle East and Afghanistan is translated into layered newsprint torsos, their camouflage patterns ‘tanned’ onto the paper using a domestic tanning bed before the forms are soaked, swollen and assembled with colourful binder clips.

Housed in painted plywood frames evoking weapons crates, fruit boxes and doll packaging, the works collapse the distinctions between soldier, consumer, commodity and protected body. Through these materials and processes, Sasraku considers how fantasies of tropical escape have developed alongside histories of colonisation, commerce and military intervention, while also examining the role of domestic and craft practices in the construction of masculine ideals. Tropical Ken ultimately traces the persistence of these histories in contemporary relationships to power, protection, control and Western imperialism.

Tropical Ken was originally commissioned by Glasgow International 2026.

Tanoa Sasraku’s practice encompasses sculpture, drawing and filmmaking. Her work is rooted in the material and symbolic properties of land via landscapes, pigments, and minerals, and informed by a personal relationship to textiles and pattern making.





Tanoa Sasraku (b. 1995, Plymouth, UK) graduated from Goldsmiths (2018) and the Royal Academy Schools (2024). Sasraku is nominated for the 2026 Turner Prize. Recent solo exhibitions include, ‘Morale Patch’, ICA, London, UK (2026); ‘Tropical Ken’, Glasgow International, Scotland (2026); ‘Man Engine’, Vardaxoglou, London (2023); ‘Tanoa Sasraku’, Vardaxoglou, London (2022); ‘Terratypes’, Spike Island, Bristol (2022); and ‘Liths’, Peer, London, UK (2023).

Recent group exhibitions include: Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR (2025); Abbot Hall Museum, Kendal, UK (2025); Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, UK (2025); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2024); Vardaxoglou, London, UK (2024); Ben Hunter, London, UK (2024); Drawing Room, London (2023); Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice (2023) cur. Lesley Lokko; Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Newlyn (2023); Tate Liverpool (2022); Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (2022); Goldsmiths CCA, London, UK (2022); Klosterruine, Berlin, (2020); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (2019); Tate St Ives, UK (2019). Sasraku’s moving image works have been screened at the BFI Southbank, as part of the 18th London Short Film Festival (2021); Selected X, VideoClub online and touring (2020); Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Berwick-upon-Tweed (2019). In 2021, Sasraku was awarded the Arts Foundation Futures Award for Visual Arts. In 2023 Sasraku completed a residency at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, UK.

Tanoa Sasraku’s work is held in the Arts Council Collection, UK; The Government Art Collection, UK; and The Box, Plymouth, UK.