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Tara Sellios
Impulses

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selios
Tara Sellios, Untitled No. 11 from the series Impulses, Digital C-Print, 2012. Courtesy
of the artist and Gallery Kayafas
.

Artist Statement
I strive to create images that elegantly articulate the totality of existence, focusing heavily on the broad themes of life and death, with further emphasis placed on ideas of fragility, impermanence, and carnality. Death has always possessed a significant presence within the history of art, ranging from altarpieces to the work of the Dutch still life painters. Manifesting melancholic themes with beauty and precision, as these artists did, results in an image that is seductive, forcing the viewer to look, despite its apparent grotesque and morbid nature.

Impulses is based on the themes of love and death. Keeping in dialogue with art history, this body of work draws inspiration from Rodin’s large scale sculpture The Gates of Hell, which is a visual interpretation of Dante’s Inferno. This sculpture portrays figures that are intertwined in various emotional and physical states in the presence of Hell. Being struck by the intensity and magnificence of this piece, I spent a lot of time studying it when creating Impulses. These photographs illustrate the tension of coupling and the insatiable, desperate nature of desire in a life that is knowingly so temporary and vulnerable. Love can be seen as a potential comfort or distraction from death in a world where everything is under the influence of passion.

Artist Bio
Tara Sellios, born in 1987, is a Boston-based artist working in large format photography. In 2010, she received her BFA in photography with a minor in art history from the Art Institute of Boston. Over the past few years, Sellios has participated in several group exhibitions, as well as two solo exhibitions, Lessons of Impermanence at Suffolk University Art Gallery and Of the Flesh at Gallery Kayafas. She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship recipient and was named an emerging photographer to watch by Art New England magazine.