ABOUT

It is only in its plurality that Tamara's body of work develops its wholeness, like one of the mythical hybrid creatures that appear again and again as an image or historical reference in her work. The sculptures could be a leg, the drawings the loose right wrist, the video the eyes, the sound of course the voice, the belly the painting, and the whole body dances, wobbles, and sways to the rhythm of its heart. As the parts wiggle around, the body is constantly shifting. There is a sense of becoming, not being.

The rhythm of the bone saw she uses to detach a limp from a pop song hovers through the air. Sharp-eyed and steady-handed, she dissects pop culture, mythology, puppets and manga figures, texts and songs and stitches them back together. She (re-)tells us stories about sex and violence, lust and pain, heaven or hell, which always fluctuate between fictional and personal – a chirurgic performance of cultural staging and assembly. What we see are creatures that are challenging our identity; do they terrify us?

Drawn in by a constant seductive game of veiling and unveiling we are waiting for the last cover to drop. But even when all have fallen, we must realize that the body itself is still a disguise, a shell. There is a revolting aspect against a core of truth in her work that makes you unable to find the solid Matryoshka. Every puppet is just the cover for another and another after that.

half possibility half fiction
hiding the personal behind ever shifting shells
mythological corpi seemingly real
her own voice, giving harmonie to scattered plurality
the vital beat of self-experience
what is body, what is shell?

Text by Kurt Cassady



PRESS

https://saliva.live/exhibitions/2dee22b1

https://www.gallerytalk.net/bruchige-versprechen-waf-wien/

https://ooo.place/content/jonathan-mink-es-ist-gruen-es-ist-magenta-und-vielleicht-wird-es-einmal-blau-sein-versuch-einer

https://kubaparis.com/post/stille-wasser-sind-tief

https://www.schwaebische.de/regional/bodensee/friedrichshafen/nixen-und-andere-wasserwesen-im-kunstverein-2473916

https://contemporarymatters.org/projects/hosted-by-contemporary-matters-with-my-jaws-blue-and-my-eyes-running-water​