ASK NOW THE BEASTS

TARA SELLIOS

//Tara is an multidisciplinary artist based in Boston, MA, USA. She works mainly in large format photography, but also in drawing, sculpture and installation. Her artistic still-life photography is full of drama and beauty. We are pleased to share a sample from her series “Ask now the beasts”.

Since receiving a BFA in photography/art history in 2010, Tara has exhibited both locally and nationally. She recently participated in an exhibition in Como, Italy at the Castello Baradello. She is also often involved in artist lectures and is teaching her first workshop in Boston through Santa Fe Photography Workshops in April.

About her art works, Tara says, “My visceral, highly detailed photographs are intensely planned and process oriented. Using an 8×10 view camera, I photograph these arrangements, which result in dramatic, painterly still-life photographs wrought with sensuality, lightness and darkness, and religious symbolism. They are intended to be printed larger than life to resemble a painting.”

“All art is poetry – art goes deeper than thought. Deeper than the stories about yourself. It breaks through the inner walls to access what’s behind.”

Rick Rubin

What draws you to the arts?

My gravitation toward the arts has always been intuitive, almost a survival instinct. I had no choice but to be an artist – I always felt like I needed to get something out, and I would explode if not. I enjoy how it is a way to communicate and connect with the world in a very special, primal way that words more often than not, can’t.

What do you like best about this photographic project?

The visual aspect of light and shadow in this series, mixed with elements of lushness. Light and dark can have so many meanings. The psyche possesses both, and I feel that you can’t have one without the other. They coexist in a beautiful dance. The light makes the dark more ominous and deep while the dark increases the brilliance and gratitude for the light. The darkness begs for the light while the light stands out in the darkness.

I strive to create images that elegantly articulate the totality of existence, focusing heavily life’s underlying instinctive, carnal nature in the face of fragility and impermanence. The concept of morality in relation to mortality has possessed a significant presence within the history of art, ranging from religious altarpiece imagery to the work of the vanitas painters. Manifesting melancholic themes with beauty, precision and seduction forces the viewer to look, despite its grotesque and morbid nature.

Through these images, I aspire to make apparent the restlessness of a life that is knowingly so temporary and vulnerable. Ask Now the Beasts derives its title from the Biblical text of Job. The symbols in these frames conjure connections to the shoulder seasons — spring and fall — moments when sacrifice once insured prosperity, but the offerings here seem to have withered on the vine. Light strikes from the left as if to indicate the passage of days grown too long. The earth passes away, but that is not to say that there is not hope — suffering and death can lead to transcendence and transformation.

These images are to be a part of a large, altarpiece structure wrought with complex references and allusions influenced by stained glass windows, illuminated manuscripts, and other genres of religious imagery intended for contemplation, storytelling and reverence.

Click on the photos to see a larger image in original dimensions.