Joanne Tarlin
Artist Statement:
I continue the tradition of painting flowers and landscapes as metaphors for mortality, but with a twist. Like the Romantics, I intend to convey a sense of awe in the presence of an uncontrollable world that is both beautiful and threatening. Similar to Turner and Friedrich, my skies are dense colorful and moody atmospheres. Soaring from mysterious places, I honor Goya, with owls as the ills of society that swoop in when our sense of reason sleeps. My variation is the incorporation of text from The Artist’s Life, a book written by my late father, Bertram Tarlin, which is both a story and a treatise on existentialism with phrases such as, “who are you” or “how can we live with ourselves when there is so much hardship and poverty in the world,” and “why is art so important."
I continue the tradition of painting flowers and landscapes as metaphors for mortality, but with a twist. Like the Romantics, I intend to convey a sense of awe in the presence of an uncontrollable world that is both beautiful and threatening. Similar to Turner and Friedrich, my skies are dense colorful and moody atmospheres. Soaring from mysterious places, I honor Goya, with owls as the ills of society that swoop in when our sense of reason sleeps. My variation is the incorporation of text from The Artist’s Life, a book written by my late father, Bertram Tarlin, which is both a story and a treatise on existentialism with phrases such as, “who are you” or “how can we live with ourselves when there is so much hardship and poverty in the world,” and “why is art so important."
