“Immersed” installed at A Plus A Gallery, Venice, Italy, 2022, Ink on yupo
Entering the gallery, a large-scale collage installation invites the viewer into the sea, only to find women immersed in the water. Small works leave hazy impressions of nude brown women emerging from dreamy landscapes. The figures indulge in the apparently simple recreation of rest and repose. These works explore the experience of leisure, in a space free from expectations, as a form of luxury. The act of rest is radical and even political as it counteracts the expected roles of labor. Are these figures even real, or just figments of desire and representations of another archetype—the mythological, the muse, the inhabitants of the unreal utopia? Tarver's work addresses the complexity and invisibility of black female identity from the history within domestic spaces to the fantasy of the tropical seductress to the archetype of the all-knowing spiritual matriarch.
2023, Ink and yupo on panel, 36 x 48 inches
2023, Ink and yupo on panel, 36 x 48 inches