Details:
① Artwork:
Untitled (Magician)
This painting features a mysterious luminescent figure 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 Artist:
Adrienne Elise Tarver’s interdisciplinary work questions the authenticity of our current environment. The artist’s work combines personal references, Afrofuturist imagery and lush vegetation in its depictions of Black subjects whose power and agency may alter the course of tomorrow. Tarver examines the present through the lens of the past, recognizing that world history’s complexities undergird our modern-day reality—as well as impact how we address our future.
BIO:
Adrienne Elise Tarver’s practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography and video. The artist received a BFA from Boston University in Massachusetts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois.
Solo exhibitions of Tarver’s work have taken place at Dinner Gallery in New York City; Ochi Projects in Los Angeles, California; Wave Hill in the Bronx, New York; Victori+Mo in New York City; BRIC Project Room in Brooklyn, New York; and A-M Gallery in Sydney, Australia. The artist’s work has also been shown at the Bronx Museum of the Arts and Children’s Museum of Manhattan, both in New York City.
Tarver was commissioned for a New York MTA project and selected as a Google Artist-in-Residence. In 2019, the artist received the inaugural artist commission prize for Art Aspen in 2019.
Tarver’s lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.