highlike

TASHA LEWIS

تاشا لويس
塔莎·刘易斯
Tasha Лью

Moments of Thaw

source: tashalewis

This has been an ongoing project on mine since November 2011. These great grazing beasts are not just heads on the wall, for their bodies exists in full behind the surface of the wall. The video below is made by my friend and fellow Swarthmore graduate Tayrisha Poe. It was a collaborative, long-distance experiment with visuals by Tayarisha, words by Alicia Salvadeo, and my Herd sculptures during my September 2012 show in the Napoleon Gallery in Philadelphia. Enjoy.

My name is Tasha Lewis and I am an artist from Indianapolis, Indiana, currently living in Manhattan and working at the studios of Aferro Gallery in Newark, NJ. My work is photographic at its base but has now expanded into the many diverse sections you can see throughout this site. Currently I am exploring the potential of high-powered magnets to create sculptures that break through glass and could be installed in any window in just a few seconds.

My current work is focused on re-imagining taxidermy and other methods of preserving life. My interest in preservation stems from my fascination with the re-presentational powers of photography. I am fascinated with how we as viewers relate to a leaf that has been mechanically produced to look and feel very similar to a real leaf. I have been scaling up that idea to make animal bodies, tree limbs, and I hope to eventually create whole environments. I am in dialogue with moments from the nineteenth century: the popularization of the photograph, the creschendo for big game hunting, and a certain nostalgia and interest in cataloging (Cabinet of curiosities, Wunderkammer etc.) Although I tap into these older sources for my work, the actual execution is dependent on today’s technologies.

My process centers around a cyanotype coated fabric. The cyanotype process dates from the 1870s and is one of the earliest forms of photography. Its images are blue to white, and are exposed in the sun and developed with water. They can be toned or bleached into a purple/mauve or orange/yellow accordingly. I have been working in this process for almost five years and I have tried all the variations. I have returned to the blue for this body of work. The blue of these pieces represents a mineral lens on nature. The natural world is full of blue things, but they are not fertile things; the oceans and sky are blue but there are very few blue animals or plants. The cyan blue of these pieces feels like life in a way, but it also feels frozen. I am attempting to catch life, to preserve it in motion, and to allow it to transcend the usual forms of human conservation.

To make these pieces I blend this historic process with PhotoShop, Google images and digital negatives. Sourcing photos from the internet I next cut up, re-shape, and mesh together images to make my final negative. Once printed this negative is used in the photographic process, and the digital work becomes a physical object. The most interesting part for me is the tactility of this new photograph. I work on cotton and have discovered how to print it double sided (this is how the leaves I print do indeed look like leaves). I treat this fabric photograph like an element in a quilt, or actually more like a mechanically produced hide which I then stitch to my sculptures.

I have always been interested in the authenticity which I get from the stitch. To me, these pieces could not be made any other way; they must be hand-sewn. Not only do I feel like this practice puts me in dialogue with the ever shifting line between craft and ‘high art’ but also, as a woman, I am re-embracing the gendered nature of sewing as a powerful art form. The stitch to me is a mark. It is my autographic mark. Look anywhere on my tree limbs or animal sculptures and up close you can see the trace of my hand’s movements. You see the time it took to sew, and you touch the piece and feel the soft fabric and the relief of the thread punctuating the surface.

The content of my work, especially the animal pieces, is interested in breaking the walls of the gallery. These animal heads recall taxidermy, but my hope is to create sculptural installations which allow the animals to leap out of the wall instead of being hung on it; I want the viewer to imagine the world within the wall. All of these animal bodies are made by me with paper, wire and tape. As for my branch pieces, they are all taken from nature and manipulated. All the branches are actually sourced from the woods and then covered in the cyanotype fabric and photographic leaves. It is the power of the photograph which makes us recognize these sculptures. They make a fabric and paper form feel like a real animal. These cyanotypes, are blueprints of living things, not the things themselves. I re-present the natural world in a new hand built form. My hope is that they not only tap into feelings of loss and history but also feelings of nostalgia for forgotten treasures, and lost times.
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source: artospherefestival

Tasha Lewis’ installation, The Herd, planned for Walton Arts Center’s Cynthia H. Coughlin Gallery Lobby, will consist of more than 17 sculptures of antelopes, impalas and gazelles leaping high through the air. Many animals will appear to penetrate hanging glass panels or emerge from or disappear into surrounding walls. Lewis covers her sculptures with fabric printed with images and textures that she finds on the Internet and adapts in Photoshop. She prints these images using cyanotype, a photographic process using a light-sensitive emulsion. Unified by the radiant cyan coloring, the creatures embody aspects of human industry as well as nature. Sewing this fabric onto her sculptural armatures with large and uneven stitches, Lewis calls attention to domestic traditions of craftwork including tailoring and quilting. She hopes that the animals’ unexpected placement, tumultuous movement, and playful coloring will spark curiosity, engaging viewers with the beauty of both natural and artificial worlds.
Bridging boundaries between art, nature, and everyday life, Tasha Lewis’ ephemeral installations of The Swarm consist of more than 1,000 butterflies printed in various sizes with cyanotype on fabric. Placing a small but powerful magnet on their bellies, Lewis can temporarily adhere them to varied metal surfaces, without leaving a trace. In the past, she has installed the swarm at sites in Indianapolis, IN; Evanston, IL; Berkeley, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Kona, HI and New York City. During her Artosphere residency this May, she will work with Walton Arts Center volunteers to construct butterflies, and will reconfigure The Swarm in unexpected locations at various sites along the Trail Mix path, around the square on First Thursday, and elsewhere. At each site, she will invite visitors to move the butterflies across the available metalwork, effectively reshaping the contours of The Swarm and redefining public areas that usually go unnoticed. Lewis will periodically re-photograph each configuration to create a video animation showing the work’s evolution.
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source: pplock

Tasha Lewis,美国艺术家,她的雕刻作品系列(解冻时刻)摒弃了用木箱或者石膏墙固定作品,而是用玻璃,这些动物或植物在容器内外或通过画廊的墙壁绽放出自己,仿佛解冻重生的时刻,使得作品看起来更加灵动。
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source: ideafixa

Em sua nova exposição no The Harrison Center, em Indianápolis (EUA), a artista Tasha Lewis mostra esculturas de animais que atravessam a matéria, usando o bom e velho truque dos ímãs escondidos. Ela cria ilusões em que uma variedade de animais e plantas se projetam através de seus recipientes ou através das paredes da galeria. A série é chamada de Called Moments of Thaw.
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source: nocoshop

Художница Таша Льюис (Tasha Lewis) создаёт уникальные работы. Её творчество удивительное и интересное, потому что в отличие от привычных всем неподвижных фигур она создаёт «живые» скульптуры. Выставки Таши проходят в Центре Харрисона в Индианаполисе. На фотографиях представленных ниже её проект «Моменты Таяния».
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source: portfolios

หากเห็นเพียงภาพในตอนแรกอาจดูคล้ายเครื่องเล่นประเภทหนึ่งในสวนสนุก แต่ทั้งหมดนี่ไม่ใช่
ประติมากรรมรูปร่างหลากหลายนี้เป็นผลงานศิลปะที่ชื่อว่า Moments of Thaw จัดแสดงเมื่อสัปดาห์ที่ผ่านมาที่ The Harrison Gallery in the Harrison Center สร้างสรรค์โดย Tasha Lewis ศิลปินจากเมือง Indianapolis สหรัฐอเมริกา ภายใต้การทำงานที่ตัวเธอสนใจเรื่องเทคนิคการใช้แม่เหล็กพลังงานแรงสูง เพื่อนำเสนอประติมากรรมที่แยกแตกจากกัน และเธอเชื่อมโครงสร้างของมันด้วยแม่เหล็กและมีกระจกเป็นตัวคั่นเพื่อสร้างมิติ อีกทั้งเธอยังบอกว่าด้วยเทคนิคนี้ทำให้เวลาในการติดตั้งสำหรับการจัดแสดงนั้นเร็วและสะดวกขึ้นมาเลยทีเดียว
ฝูงสัตว์สีน้ำเงิน-ขาวทั้งหลาย จึงดูเหมือนว่าร่างกายแตกหักนั้นยังดูเคลื่อนไหวในอิริยาบถต่างๆ ทว่าทั้งหมดนั้นไม่มีชีวิต