Details:

This painting features a woman who doubles as an allegorical symbol drawn from the tarot. This work is part of a series by the artist that continues a legacy preserved by a history of seekers—contributing to an archive of artists’ translations of the tarot.
Framed: 12.5 x 9.0 x 1.0 in.
Signed

① Artwork:

Manifesting Paradise: High Priestess 2

This painting features a woman who doubles as an allegorical symbol drawn from the tarot. This work is part of the artist’s series Manifesting Paradise, a suite of twenty-two mixed media works on paper. Each work is based on a card from the Major Arcana (major mysteries), the foundation of the centuries-old tarot deck. Each “card” illustrates the artist’s interpretations of the allegorical symbols of the Major Arcana. Tarver continues a legacy preserved by a history of seekers, contributing to an archive of artists’ translations of the tarot—including Leonora Carrington’s Major Arcana paintings (1955); Betye Saar’s House of Tarot (1966); Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden (1979–2002).

Encompassing a variety of different mediums, Tarver's work questions the authenticity of our current social environment—as well as the dramatic changes it undergoes over time to continue to satisfy contemporary needs. The artist's compositions examine the present through the lens of the past, recognizing that the complexities of world history have compounded into modern-day realities and thereby affect how we address our future. Tarver's work weaves together personal references, Afro-futurist imagery and lush vegetation to depict a cast of Black subjects whose power and agency may alter the course of tomorrow.

Specs:

3.75 inches
5.5 inches
with frame
9 inches
12.5 inches
1 inches
12.5 inches

③ Artist:

Adrienne Elise Tarver

Adrienne Elise Tarver is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural worker with a practice that spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, textiles, and video. Tarver’s work addresses the complexity and invisibility of Black female identity, inspired by the mythologized assumptions of the African diaspora, cultural icons, oral and speculative histories centering on domestic space, and archetypes like the tropical seductress and the spiritual matriarch.

Adrienne Elise Tarver was born in 1985 in New Jersey and lives in Brooklyn, NY. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL (2011) and a BFA from Boston University in Boston, MA (2007).

Tarver’s work has been exhibited at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, CT; the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta, GA; Wedge Curatorial in Toronto, Canada; Hollis Taggart in New York City, NY; A-M Gallery in Sydney, Australia; and OCHI in Los Angeles, CA and Sun Valley, ID.

Tarver won a Silver Art Projects Artist-in-Residence (2022-2023) and a Nancy Graves Visual Art Grant (2022).

Tarver’s work has been featured in various publications, including The New York Times, Forbes, Brooklyn Magazine, ArtNews, ArtNet, Whitewall Magazine, and Hyperallergic.

Adrienne Elise Tarver:
Manifesting Paradise: High Priestess 2, 2020
Ink, colored pencil and oil pastel on paper
5.5 × 3.8 inches /
Adrienne Elise Tarver:
Manifesting Paradise: High Priestess 2, 2020
Ink, colored pencil and oil pastel on paper
5.5 × 3.8 inches /