Opening: Palo Alto Arts Center, Papercuts: Large Scale Collage

Dates: Opening June 22^nd 2018 7-10pm,

June 16 – August 26^th 1313 Newell Rd Palo Alto, CA

Progeny

Tara de la Garza’s meditations on nature and diversity manifest as a taxonomy of species, collaged together from elements collected from natural history books, magazines and found images. In her second series her species continues to evolve. As they propagate their progeny of bizarre descendants reflect on our own progress.

de la Garza creates “a visual mythology that dissolves both the hierarchy and the boundaries between living things” Sarah Walko

Tara de la Garza likes to think of time in geological terms, evolving slowly. Her evolutionary creatures are an imagining of life on a planet unfettered by overcrowding or even, indeed, the laws of nature. Yet somehow these distorted creatures look as if they could function in the world, much like the parlor game of the Exquisite Corpse, they have a head, a torso and a tail/legs.

Likening the work to that of a scientist discovering a new species she names her creatures based on a nomenclature of relationships, the Latin names attributed to important people in her life. In this exhibited work the species are paired off and create their own descendants.

Creating collages in a workshop is such a rewarding experience for me as the participants can immediately begin to see connections and juxtapositions between the imagery provided and also create their own.

I mentioned to the group that part of my inspiration came from the second hand bookstore in La Jolla and was very happy to hear that one artist went there the next day, mining the $1 book rack for imagery.

This is going to be a fun night where
we drink wine, tell tales and make some art.

One mystery limited edition print will be available only on this evening.