Artist Statement
Tara Raye Russo’s core influences are from the everyday, as well as current social, political and environmental modes. She seeks to capture an element of happenstance in combination with a symbolic layering of materials and meaning that heeds as well as inspires the viewer. Russo’s aims with her art is to raise curiosities about our temporal existence as well as our interconnectedness to the universe and each other.
Process Statement
"Inn Noir" began on a road trip from New Jersey to an artist residency in New Mexico. The first photograph was taken at a Hampton Inn in rural Texas. The series continued to document much of the western United States sparsely populated wide open spaces where minimalist details became relevant under a centralized light i.e halogen, florescent, moon or the sun. The temperature of available artificial and natural light is highlighted in stark contrast against the compositions dominant black background. The process for "Inn Noir" like most of my work involves seeking meditative stillness while lurking behind a DSLR, in anticipation of a run with the wild for my imagination to follow.
In 2012 Tara Raye Russo continued in the field of performance with a concentration in public intervention, social practice, web based media, video, photography and site-specific installation with a focus on painting. Russo began 2013 with a screening at the Museum of Modern Art, New York with two videos included in "Abstract: Currents" presented by PopRally.
Russo utilizes the natural and immediate environment not only to reflect on cultural ideologies, the phenomena of popular culture and the effects of globalization; but also, at times, to depart to more spiritual forms of abstraction as a cathartic release from affirmative action.
Recently as independent curator for "the Standard of Spring" she introduced the art of 19 video and performance artists to the public along the Highline and from the Standard Hotel, New York. Russo was invited in the fall of 2012 to participate in "Art in Odd Places: Model" in New York where she performed "Celebrity World". The concept of this performance examines the entertainment and fashion industries stimulus and impact on class and identity. Select multi media based performances were also included for "Low Lives 4" and "Low Lives: Occupy", a live web based international festival. She presented the performance video project "Snowmachine" (contesting corporate fast food chains and its effects on poor communities in the form of a fairy tale) and "Protest: Stand in Solidarity, Farmers Vs Monsanto" (protesting the GMO industry with a petitioning, grassroots traveling project done by sequential video recording and projection). "Protest" was later included in "ISEA: Machine Wilderness" in Albuquerque, New Mexico and will be featured at "The Vault" program at SPACES Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio.
Russo’s work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions since 2004. A partial list of events and institutions include: The Montclair Art Museum, (NJ) The Jersey City Museum, (NJ) The Paterson Museum, (NJ) The Contemporary Art Institute (Philadelphia), Rutgers University, (NJ) Rogue Video and Performance (NJ) and The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJ). She has also participated in the following outdoor festivals for video and performance art: Site Fest (NY) Conflux Festival (NY) and Pixel Pops (NY/NJ metropolitan area).
Tara Raye Russo began her studies in Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts, studied graphic design at Pratt Manhattan, and continued her studies abroad at L’ Escola de Massana, Barcelona, Spain and Lorenzo de Medici, Florence, Italy, focusing on painting and installation. In 2000 she received her B.F.A. in Sculpture from William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey.
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