Light, Blue, Disco is an exhibition of works on paper that explore the limits of watercolour painting. Each work carefully considers the pushes and pulls of watery bleeds, hues and the subtle textures that arise as part of the drying process. They were painted by using a super-wet process to create numerous layers of washes, colour pools, and gestural shapes before figurative symbolic shapes emerged from the surface. I liken this process to a slow-motion dance of sorts, when light, shapes, and movement collapse together, leaving a lasting impression, like a time-lapse image taken at a party.
As these works required patience to watch and massage where the bleeds and colours finally set, a series of small intimate works also evolved in tandem. Painted in the studio with a mixed playlist of music playing at all times, but mostly 80’s Italian disco, a small world of characters appeared - some dreamt, some connected to the places I love, some fond memories.
Tara Marynowsky August 2022
Tara Marynowsky’s painterly interventions on vintage postcards and subtly rendered watercolours explore the raw power of the feminine. She knows that nostalgia for a perfectly contained female energy exists alongside the historical transformation of women’s self-identity, and she looks to bring poetic truth to light. Her process-oriented sensibility balances emotive intensity with delicate line, form and colour, and imbues the fragile figures of men and women, animals, ghostly apparitions and masked players inhabiting her work with an otherworldly honesty – connecting a strangely familiar past with an unsettling present.
Provocative and direct, confronting and comforting, Marynowsky’s ability to enter the viewer into an intimate relationship with the fragility and beauty of curiosity, play and subverted politesse forces dialogue with the tropes we use to define ourselves. In her work, cultural stereotypes, mythical archetypes and unspoken longings meet up with the subconscious currents that influence our daily lives.
Tara Marynowsky graduated from the University of New South Wales School of Art and Design (Honours) in 2002 where she studied Time Based Arts. Recent exhibitions include solo shows as well as the group show Femme-Maison: Imagined Boundaries at Macquarie University. Tara was commissioned to create new work for The National 2019: New Australian Art at Carriageworks. In 2015 she received a Marten Bequest Scholarship for Painting. Her video works have screened internationally at Filmmuseum Düsseldorf and The Centre Pompidou. Her work is held by Artbank, dLux MediaArts, Goulburn Art Gallery and in private collections. She has been featured in publications including Art Collector, Juxtapoz, Broadsheet and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Tara Marynowsky
Born 1979, Sydney, Australia
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia
EDUCATION
2002
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales
AWARDS AND PRIZES
2021
Finalist, Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize
2015
Marten Bequest Scholarship, Painting
2014
Artist in Residence, Wis(c)h, Supported by City of Sydney
2012
Second Place, Linden Postcard Prize, Linden New Art, Melbourne
2011
Best Sydney Artist Award, FBI Radio, Sydney
2010
Fraser Studios Artist Residency, Queen Street Studios, Sydney
Rising Star Award, Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female'
2008
Finalist, Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship, Artspace, Sydney
2006
Australia Council Inter-Arts grant, RUN_WAY
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
'Cave', Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
2022
'Light, Blue, Disco', Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
2020
'Movies', Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
2018
'Balancing Act', Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
'Volta', Chalkhorse Gallery, Sydney
2015
'Brain Rain', Chalkhorse Gallery, Sydney
'Tide is High', Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
2014
'Venus of Venus', Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
'Open Studio', Art Month Sydney
2011
'Wallflower', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne
2010
'Gods and Monsters', Chalk Horse, Sydney
2007
'I Really Like What You’ve Done To Me', Kings Ari, Melbourne
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Cementa24 Festival, Kandos Musuem, Kandos NSW
Femme-Maison: Imagined Boundaries, Macquarie University, Sydney
2023
Fried Eyes, Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sydney
Spring Art Fair with Chalk Horse Gallery, Melbourne
2022
Tara Marynowsky, Kate Mitchell, Madeleine Pfull, Jason Phu, Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
2021
'Shaping Wit', Willoughby Art Centre
2020
'UN-TV', The Unconformity, Tasmania
2019
Sydney Contemporary Art Fair with Edwina Corlette, Sydney
The National 2019: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney
'The New Gallery Show', Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
2018
Art Fair, Art Central Hong Kong, Chalkhorse Gallery, Stand E11
'Sauced Material', Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
'Flame Seed', Incinerator Art Space, Sydney
2017
'1717 Painting/not painting', Galerie pompom, Sydney
Group Show, Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
2016
'Rawhide with Abbey McCulloch', Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
2015
Alaska Studios Group Show, Alaska Projects, Sydney
'Mug Shot', Gallery Ecosse, Exeter, New South Wales
'Octopus15', Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne
Art Central Hong Kong (Art Fair), Chalk Horse Gallery, Hong Kong
'Lost and Profound', curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne
2014
'Sealed Section', curated by Miriam Kelly, Artbank, Sydney
'Beastly', Delmar Gallery, Sydney
'Sense of Surround', Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
Melbourne Art Fair, Chalkhorse Gallery, Melbourne
2013
'Still Life', Delmar Gallery, Sydney
'Rue de Belleville', Galerie Pom Pom, Sydney
'Rumble', Wellington St Projects, Sydney
Linden Postcard Prize, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne
2012
'Invitation on Paper', Chi Chi Potter Gallery, Copenhagen
'Still Life', Delmar Gallery, Sydney
2011
'Still Life', Delmar Gallery, Sydney
'Ten Degrees of Separation', Poimena Art Gallery, Tasmania
'Transcendental Freakout', Remote (online)
2010
'The Shilo Project', S.H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
'Chalk Reindeer', Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
2009
'Chalk Reindeer', Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
'Post-flux', Maison des Auteurs asbl, Bussels
T'ara Marynowsky, Danny Morse & Tim Moore', Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
'Hors Pistes', Pompidou Centre, Paris
'Hard Party', Sydney Harbour Art Cruise, Sydney
2008
'Chalk Reindeer', Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship, Artspace, Sydney
'Great Whites & Tan Lines & Tales', Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
'Videoformes 2008', Clermont Ferrand
2007
'Ecoutez les Zimages', Reunion, Pacific Ocean
'Panoramic Perturbations', 'a little blah blah’, Ho Chi Minh City
International Festival of Video art of Casablanca, Casablanca
'Videoformes: Prix De La Creation Video', Clermont-Ferrand
'Sin City Pompidou film program', ACMI, Melbourne
COLLECTIONS
Filmmuseum Düsseldorf
Kandos Museum
Goulburn Regional Gallery
Artbank
Freshwater Place
Private Collections in Australia and Internationally
COMMISSIONS
Coming Attractions for The National 2019: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, commissioned by Carriageworks.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2019
Naomi Riddle, Artist text for ‘Coming Attractions’, The National 2019: New Australian Art, catalogue, 2019
Andrew Frost, The National 2019 Review: Contemporary Art from the Uncanny to the Inviting, The Guardian, March 29, 2019
Anna Dunhill, Monstrous Feminine, Art Guide, April 2, 2019
Will Cox, The National: Five Artists to Watch, Broadsheet, 01 March, 2019
2015
Preview, Tracey Clement, Art Guide Australia, 26 November
Editor’s Pick 6til8, Art Collector Magazine, Tide is High: Tara Marynowsky, January
Daniel Mudi Cunningham, Art Collector Magazine, Collector’s Love: Tara Marynowsky, January
2014
Andrew Frost, Sydney Morning Herald: Top 5 Critics’ Picks, 26 May
Andrew Frost, The Art Life: Venus of Venus, 16 May
2013
Juxtapoz Magazine Online: Tara Marynowsky, April
Interview, The Interview Zine: Women Artists, New York, February
2012
Commissioned Artwork, Please! Magazine: Birthday Issue, curated by Leslie David, France, June
2011
Interview, FBI Radio, Canvas, Mon, 10 January
2010
Andrew Frost, Sydney Morning Herald: Ten Rising Visionaries Make Their Mark: Next Big Things, October
Adam Fulton, Sydney Morning Herald: Neil Diamond Tribute not such a dotty idea, July 2
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia first major original exhibition in two decades opened to the public on Friday, bringing with it an insight into Australian films and film talent - both behind and in front of the camera. Curator Tara Marynowsky shares how this treasure trove of beloved cinema moments came to life.
Australians & Hollywood is both a celebration and a provocation to rethink Australian cinema today, at home, in Hollywood and beyond. Visitors will be taken on a journey through the pivotal moments in recent and contemporary Australian cinema, starting from the ‘70s.
'At a glance: A Sydney-based artist who doesn’t start with a blank canvas but builds on existing images, interacting with and subverting the past. She has appeared in exhibitions here and overseas.
What she’s known for: Her watercolour and gouache “interventions” on vintage postcards, which merge colour and surrealism with sepia-tinted images of young women. Her 2018 exhibition at Brisbane’s Edwina Corlette Gallery, Balancing Actress, featured vintage images of nude dancing “girls” with their faces obscured, bathed in pastel textures.
For The National: Her work starts with a more recent jumping-off point, and an angrier, more overtly political tone. For her piece, Coming Attractions, Marynowsky found 35-millimetre reels of ’90s Hollywood film trailers, including Pretty Woman, Shakespeare in Love, Species and Indecent Proposal, and took to the negatives with a knife, scratching each frame. It’s a labour-intensive and imprecise process. When the film is scanned and played back the result is a series of frenzied animations. Julia Roberts’s face is removed, making her almost monstrous. Gwyneth Paltrow is given a Medusa-like head of snakes. The dodgy gender politics of each film is subverted by force.
Anna Dunnill reviews Tara Marynowsky's work in 'The National'for Art Guide. She writes:
Artist Tara Marynowsky has long been fascinated with the monstrous feminine – the twin forms of female beauty and ugliness. She collects old photographic portraits from the first half of the 20th century, often sent as postcards, and applies delicate layers of watercolour and gouache – giving the women bulging brains, greenish skin and purple rouge; eyes blank or goggling.
In addition to her well-known drawing practice, Marynowsky has long worked with film and video; in fact, video came first, having majored in time-based art at Sydney’s College of Fine Arts (now University of New South Wales, Art & Design). However, after focusing on video for some time, her drawing practice came out of a yearning for the tactile: “I just really wanted to get back to using my hands,” she says.
In her forthcoming installation for 'The National', she has managed to do both. To be exhibited at Carriageworks, Marynowsky’s work 'Coming Attractions' consists of four videos, each taking as its raw material a film trailer from the 1990s: Pretty Woman (1990), Indecent Proposal (1993), Species (1995), and Shakespeare in Love (1998). While at one level these films may spark nostalgia, in each of them the female character is an object of men’s pursuit and desire: variously bought, sold, rescued, hunted and bargained over. Their release dates mark out Marynowsky’s adolescence and highlight some of the female role models available for mass consumption at that time.
Tara Marynowsky's video work in 'The National' has been included in a review by The Guardian.
Key works at Carriageworks include Sean Rafferty’s Cartonography (FNQ), a wall of cardboard fruit boxes, everyday objects given a monumental treatment that highlights the surreal oddity of their design, and in Coming Attractions (2017-19) there’s another use of found objects. Tara Marynowsky takes 35mm feature film trailers sourced from eBay and scratches out key figures from the image, such as Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman. The result is amusing but pointed – the pretty woman is erased.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) today announced that 'The National 2019: New Australian Art'will present the work of 65 emerging, mid-career and established Australian contemporary artists living across the country and abroad.
A major collaborative venture, 'The National 2019'is the second edition of a six-year initiative presented in 2017, 2019 and 2021, exploring the latest ideas and forms in contemporary Australian art.
Connecting three of Sydney’s key cultural precincts – The Domain, Redfern and Circular Quay – 'The National 2019'follows a successful first edition of the exhibition held in autumn of 2017 that attracted 286,631 visitors.
Tara Marynowsky will present new work for the 'National 2019' at Carriageworks.
EXHIBITION DATES:
Art Gallery of New South Wales: 29 March – 21 July 2019
Carriageworks: 29 March – 23 June 2019
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia: 29 March – 23 June 2019
IMAGE:
Installation view of 'The National 2019: New Australian Art', image courtesy Carriageworks
Chris Bond, Ricky Emmerton, Tara Marynowsky, Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Nicola Smith
'Sauced Material' brings together a group of artists who extend the narrative or form of existing media. Their works have been shaped, moulded and crafted from film, music, personal histories and literature but with flavour anew and enhanced. This adaptive approach orients audiences to and from a new point of orbit in reference to the work. Memory is at play - but so is the politics of origin and ownership.
Within the breadth of time that has passed between the first and the now, a clear history has been created. These artists reveal that distance in their own remaking. Their approaches differ but the commentaries and techniques are crystallised and ready for service.
- Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
The exhibition is open from 2 March - 14 April 2018
Congratulations Tara Marynowsky for receiving a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship worth $20,000 to continue to pursue her artistic career.
Tara Marynowsky will travel widely with her scholarship funds, including to New York, where she will engage with contemporary art practices, and the UK, where she will collect Edwardian and Victorian documents and artefacts. These experiences will inform her new work, which she will commence during a four month residency at La Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris). Her overarching aim is to investigate symbolism in art and cultural belonging through African American art, French symbolism and English culture.
Congratulations Tara Marynowsky for featuring in the latest issue of Art Collector magazine. Tara was listed as one of Art Collector’s ’50 Things Collectors Need to Know About’ and is considered to be one of the artists who will be shaping the Australian and New Zealand art worlds in 2015.
Tara Marynowsky features in Artbank’s exhibition ‘Sealed Section’ curated by Miriam Kelly, showing from 28 November, 2014 until 7 February, 2015.
Tearing open the ‘perforated pages’ of the Artbank collection, Sealed Section reveals works that canvas the topics of impolite dinner conversation: sex, politics and religion. Underpinning these often controversial topics is a consideration of the complexities of human relations and the human condition. As a result, Sealed Sectionincludes a rich and diverse group of works that highlight the strength and pertinence of contemporary art as a response to the key issues of our time.
- Miriam Kelly, Artbank
IMAGE:
Installation view of 'Sealed Section', courtesy Artbank and the artist
