Tara Cronin has pursued an art career that has both helped her solve problems in her own internal space as well as in the space she finds herself situated externally. Her artwork began by addressing mental illness, after spending three years in and out of mental hospitals for biochemical imbalances. Her exposure to medical chemistry, which altered her own internal states, led her to photograph her appreciation of the contrast between the material, physiological world and the immaterial one of human experience. After her work on her troubled past, Tara received a BA in Writing from New School University, and an MFA in Photography from the ICP-Bard Program, both in New York City, and has Twice-earned the ICP Director’s Fellowship Award.

During her graduate and post-graduate work, Tara explored this interface between the material and the individual by making photographic scans of reconstituted hemoglobin and chlorophyllin, as well as of liquid metals such as galinstan. She also co-patented a unique polymer made from these materials, which after scientific research demonstrated itself to be the first synthetic membrane able to remove CO2 directly from air and convert it into useful hydrocarbons such as fuels and coconut oil. This resulted in a solo show in the Museo de la Ciudad in Querétaro, Mexico, and later a featured talk and exhibition at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC.

Tara traveled to Egypt, in Mid-May 2013 to photograph the conditions in there just prior to the second Egyptian Revolution, which broke out just a few days after her trip. Her photography on this subject was later shown in a group show at the International Center for Photography. In addition to being a photographer, Tara is also co-founder and art-director of Magical Thinking Publications, co-publishing three initial books with Schilt Publishing. She also co-founded Viceroy Chemical, Inc. and has sat on the board of directors of the company.

Believing strongly supportive of a ‘generalist’ attitude toward the one life we have, while Tara’s work is heavily focused on making and learning from artwork via photographic methods, she readily admits to an eager lay-learner-attitude of the anatomical makeup and biochemical workings of the human body. This, novice-science reader is as much considered as how that physicality relates to our wordless and complex human experience – she applies both in her start-up endeavors, her daily life, and very much in her practice.

 

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