May 17 - August 11, 2023
On the occasion of the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbati Gallery is proud to present two new exhibitions conceived especially for the spaces inside Palazzo Lezze in Campo Santo Stefano, Venice.
For her first exhibition in Europe, Los Angeles-based artist Tara Walters (b. 1990, Washington D.C.) has produced a series of new paintings titled Sailing for the Garden Party, displayed in the rooms on the Fist Floor.
Walters’ paintings are imbued with sea water, sand and sea shell dust that give the works a subtle and mystical luminescence, capturing the fleeting language of our intuition and memory using elements of the physical world, the starting point of our mind and spirit’s voyages. The colourful dream-like works disguise a profound search for meaning behind the apparent naivety of the subjects; painted air balloons and starry skies reminiscent of childhood become a hypertext that transports the viewer to a liminal state between memory and fantasy.
The title of the exhibition references Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Garden Party”, an allegoric view of life and death through the distorted lense of one’s perspective on the meaning of reality, which inspired Tara’s works and the following poem:
A map, a sign, be it a shooting star or rainbow
reaffirming that you are on the right course.
a guiding light pulling you in closer and closer
until you land on a bee encrusted air balloon
symbolizing the ever source keeping this garden alive.
be it a nuisance or a gift,
if you disrespect it prepare to be stung.
ouch! goes the naive one.
while those who acknowledge its presence
remain in the pure bliss of the everlasting garden party.
Tara Walters, 2023
Tara Walters (b. 1990, Washington D.C.) lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her MFA in 2020 from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and her BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA. Her work has been included in solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles.
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