Welcome all to the provocative and intriguing world of Tania Taubes. Here you will encounter three different mediums - acrylic, gouache, and clay- which differ in formal presentation while all sharing the same fluid, intuitive mystery and mastery.
All of Tania work feels drawn from some deep well, the collective subconscious from which creativity often springs, defying simple analysis and, in the way of art at its fertile best, presenting us with questions, not answers, suggesting perhaps not how to think but, rather, what might warrant our careful thought.
In many of the pieces this mindset of non-judgmental reflection is given poignant emphasis by the moon bearing thoughtful compassionate witness overhead.
Consider the large acrylic images with their deeply disturbed and deeply disturbing, dreamlike cast of characters. Is this the world we wish for? Is this but an unflinching gaze at the way things are now or a premonition of a possible world to come? There are no easy answers here.
Consider now, by contrast, the smaller gouaches, clinical but loving studies of the minutiae of daily life, the universe in a grain of sand. These images have a calming, meditative feel in stark counterpoint to the atavistic Hobbesian hellscapes of much of the larger work.
The clay masks then seem to inhabit a wholly human middle ground of familiar expressions and emotions, as in a Shakespearian theater troupe, reflecting us back to ourselves in all our humor, pathos and strange relatable guises.
So let yourself be disturbed, beguiled, comforted, or amused. For better or worse it seems that we all share common ground in this unexpected world of Tania Taubes.