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Tara Sharpe

tarasharpe.com

Tara Sharpe was born in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1982 and spent her formative years between the ocean of the Gold Coast and the mountains of North Carolina. As an only child Sharpe began creating at a very young age as a form of escape. She constructed elaborate tales of mythology and dystopian folklore that evolved into an entire world populated with rich characters. Blending litter and natural findings with traditional supplies, she adorned herself and her toys, filling a lonely childhood with color and decoration. Sharpe’s formal art education started at the age of 12 at Dreyfoos School of the Arts and she began exhibiting and selling work at 14. It was at this time Sharpe’s interest in depicting the female face and form began. At the age of 15, Sharpe received a full scholarship for a Fine Art Residency Program at School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. After living in New York for over a decade, she relocated to Arizona. In Fall 2013, Sharpe founded the award winning project Artelphx (now Artelshow). In October 2015, her solo show Sirens & Serpents opened in Phoenix. In 2016, she was selected for “100 Creatives” by Phoenix New Times and interviewed by Beautiful Bizarre Magazine in March 2017. Sharpe presented her first public art as part of She Tempe in 2017. Exhibited and collected throughout the country, her work evolves with a consistent theme: The beauty and darkness inherent in the feminine divine.

Artist Statement

Radiating a latent violence, Tara Sharpe’s work complicates perceptions of beauty and myth using saturated jewel tone colors in layered opacities. Shown as symbolic entities, the female subjects gaze directly at or beyond the viewer, creating a hypnotizing tension. Ornamentations and other worldly elements provide protection to Sharpe’s women, as they are protectors themselves. Influenced most significantly by Post-Impressionism, Expressionism and Art Nouveau, Sharpe’s work seeks to add a new depiction of feminine beauty independent of current time and events, presenting its own origin and mythology stories.

Description of Work for She Tempe

The Mimicry of Flowers Series depicts female figures with flowers as ornamentation and protection, emulating nature’s own preservation and colors.