Artist Adrienne Elise Tarver Explores Her Identity in New Chelsea Gallery Show
Adrienne Elise Tarver is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist who's currently showing new work at Dinner Gallery in Chelsea. In the show, called Where the Waters Go, Tarver examines her own identity as a black woman through painting, using a character she invented named Vera Otis as inspiration, as well as old Ebony magazines. Tarver discusses her work, which is on view now through June 29.
This segment is guest-hosted by Kousha Navidar
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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. A new exhibit at the Dinner Gallery explores the intersection between identity and the historical narratives of aspirational spaces. It's titled Where the Waters Go and it's from artist Adrienne Elise Tarver. In this exhibit, Tarver has showcased a number of tropical, saturated, dreamy southern estates that nod to Hollywood's golden age.
Within these paintings, a central character, a Black woman, situates herself within the setting looking away in thought or sometimes looking right back at you. Where the Waters Go is on display now at the Dinner Gallery until June 29th. With us in studio is the artist of the exhibit, Adrienne Elise Tarver. Adrian, welcome to the show.
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Thank You so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. It's a pleasure to have you here. I described the exhibit a little bit, but for someone who's going to visit the Gallery, could you tell them what they'll see when they first walk in?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Yes. Absolutely. These spaces, you walk in and there's warm colors, I would say, are the first impression. These warm yellows and pinks giving atmosphere to these scenes of this woman, this character that I've created and has been in my work for about 10 years of Vera Otis. She lounges by a pool. She's standing in a doorway. There's these estate-type houses and a little bit of ambiguity about exactly where or what these places are.
Kousha Navidar: Vera is a character that I am so interested in. Like you said, she's been a part of your work for over a decade, right?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Yes.
Kousha Navidar: Can you tell the story about that? Who is Vera and how or maybe why does she show up in these paintings?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Yes. I was struggling, I think, for a minute in grad school with trying to access these stories, personal stories, other things that related to myself, people I knew, research of women, famous women. I was using a lot of old family photographs and struggling to have the creative license to really include all of the things I was thinking about or researching. It was on the suggestion of somebody doing a critique to find photos that looked like maybe somebody I could be related to but I didn't know.
I found a photo in a thrift store in Chicago and there's no information on the back of it. I had no information about who she was, but that's the woman who looked like I could be related to her. I just created this whole story around who she was and who I needed her to be for the work.
Kousha Navidar: Wow. What draws you back to Vera over and over again over 10 years?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: I think there's something about Vera. In the original photograph, there's a certain confidence in poise and feeling like I knew who she was. I think I keep seeing her in different places. In some ways, I talk about her as a surrogate for myself, but also she includes women I know and experiences that I find interesting and true, relevant to my own experience or just the experience of being a Black woman in this world.
Kousha Navidar: Do you think of her as being on a journey from piece to piece that you're doing? Is there an arc for Vera? Can we expect more hover in the future or is it more just like slices of life kind of thing?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Yes. Absolutely an arc. I know I've been creating, again, this story for 10 years, so I understand the parts of it, but I'm creating it as I go and so I understand a little bit more now that I'm 10 years in where she's come from. I've gone backwards a little bit to think about her lineage, specifically her maternal lineage, her mother and her grandmother, where she came from, and how she got to where she is in this house that's pictured in the exhibit. I'm excited to think about in the future where she's going and what happens as she ages and what are the other encounters in her life that become really significant.
Kousha Navidar: For Where the Waters Go, where would you describe her in her arc?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: I think she's a little bit in transition. She's in a house. I'm thinking about aspirational spaces, so thinking of the idea of the dream home that's a little bit fraught because I also bring in this history of a plantation house into the story. Thinking about this space, what exists in the case study houses of LA, which is like from 1945 to 1960s, these houses that were designed, modernist houses to portray the idea of an ideal space.
I think of this house as a space that she achieved success and was able to get for herself and live in, but then is not necessarily living up to what her dream entailed and so is leaving the space. That's not so explicit in the show, but in my own story of who she is, there's this transitional space she's in. This sort of reconciliation of what the dream is and what reality is.
Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking to Adrienne Elise Tarver, the artist. Her exhibit is titled Where the Waters Go. It's on display now at the Dinner Gallery until June 29th. There's a word that pops up in a lot of the description of the show, which you actually just used when you were describing Vera's journey. That word is "Dream." Why is that word so important to understanding the intention behind these pieces?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: I think it's an astute point because I think the idea of a dream, it's an escape from reality. I think, especially I'm interested in the histories and lineages of Black people, Black people in America, but the whole Black diaspora. There's a heavy need to dream beyond your reality and our histories. I think, especially when I was thinking about this show in spaces, I was juxtaposing not only this, the dream home of Vera, but I've been doing research on my own history and found the history of the Tarver plantation, which it's a building that still exists in Georgia. It doesn't go by that name anymore.
What does that mean when you think about that as a dream home with all these fraught histories that a plantation estate holds? That idea of an aspirational space or a dream home next to each other, thinking about that throughout, the history of Black property and ownership, those words start to take on different meanings when you put these two histories next to each other.
Kousha Navidar: Was there a specific home that you were using as inspiration when you were designing these pictures for Where the Waters Go?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Yes. Specifically, there's the Tarver plantation, which I have images from the historical registry application that they'd put so it could be considered a historical landmark. I think that application was sent in maybe the '90s, so I have 20 images of that house and I've used those images in this show and also a previous show. Then the house of Vera is very specifically inspired by a lot of these houses from the '50s and '60s from the case study houses. Stall and Neutra are some of those famous architects that we have this idea of what those modern LA movie-star homes look like and a lot of them are coming out of that aesthetic of these case study houses.
Kousha Navidar: Another element that really-- element is actually-- a perfect word here is water. Sorry. I did not mean for that to be a pun, but we'll just say I meant that. Water is a huge part of the show. Also, we see Vera swimming in or out of the frame. What draws you to the water and to the swimming?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Water is one of those things. I really attracted to things that have double meanings in terms of super positive and a super maybe whether negative or fraught or difficult meaning. I think water is specifically one of those things that you can think of as cleansing and freeing and natural and all of those beautiful connotations, but then also, especially if you're thinking about Black history, there's the middle passage and it's this basically large graveyard.
Water, especially if you're thinking about the ocean, it's terrifying and it's powerful and it's destructive. It has these two sides of it that-- I love the idea of something that can feel a little innocuous in our everyday experience, we're seeing it has such powerful meanings on both sides.
Kousha Navidar: Dichotomy seems to be a huge part-
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Absolutely.
Kousha Navidar: -in many. Are there other ways in which you're toying or playing with dichotomy in this?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Yes. I think it's the idea of the dream, the dream home, the aspirational space, the water. In a previous show, my last show with the Dinner Gallery was called Escape and I was thinking about the duality of that word, "Escape," as it relates to travel culture, your vacation escape that's used very casually, but then that true meaning of escape when you start to think about escaping bondage or slavery or things, has a very deep dark meaning. I like to think about things that have these multiple meanings and the dichotomy, the duality of things.
Kousha Navidar: It is almost visceral to these paintings, I would say. My producer is in love with An Eye Open Tonight, and you can almost feel the humidity in the air, hear the mosquitoes in the leaves, but there's also a peacefulness about a night swim. What inspired that painting?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: I liked the light emanating from the pool, the darkness. There's a couple of paintings that are in this corner space in the front of the Gallery that I call them the dark paintings. One of them, the character, Vera, is alone in a room crouched in a bed, and then the other one is this night swim. Both of them are a bit intrusive. As a viewer, your experience of her is from afar looking at somebody who doesn't know they're being looked at and so the cover of night to access a private moment. Then I'm interested in that experience of the viewer may be feeling uncomfortable or questioning their access, whether they're actually supposed to have access to that moment.
Kousha Navidar: Do these pieces tell a story to you from start to finish when viewers go in like your larger body of Vera's work does or is it different?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: I think it does, but it doesn't have to be a linear story. I like the idea that people can piece them together in different ways and that like if you walk in the front room first, you're going to have this intimate experience of the dark paintings. Then if you walk to the back room first and then go forward, you're going to have a different experience of the paintings are brighter in the back room. There's these big windows in the back of the Gallery, and it feels more, I think, joyous. Then maybe if you see that first, by the time you get to the front smaller space, then you understand there's maybe some underlying complications to the emotions.
Kousha Navidar: Did you end up in a different spot than you expected after thinking about this story and these collections of paintings than where you started?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: That's a really good question. I think, yes, and I think I continually, one of the joys I think of working on this body of work and continuing to work with Vera is I don't have a preconceived notion of where she's going. I'm developing the story. I'm the author of the story, yet I feel like I'm finding it with her. I do think at this point of putting the show together, there's a lot of threads happening in the studio, and some of them didn't make it into the show, and they will make it into future work. I was trying to pull out from the work that I was making what really was this chapter about? What element really started to make a scene in some way. There's a cinematic building in some ways.
Kousha Navidar: Color is such a big part of it too. These colors, the reds, the blues, the yellows, they're so deep. How did you do that?
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Kousha Navidar: I'm not an artist. I don't know how to ask this question. How did you make that happen?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: I could go into art professor mode in the-- I used an underpainting. I've always used an underpainting, but I use very saturated colors as the underpainting. Really what it does is really help light emanate from behind forward in the painting. If I wanted there to be a really warm light, then I use a really bright yellow as the first layer. Then everything on top of that is then affected by that yellow.
Kousha Navidar: Is that a technique that you are used to using a lot or is there some kind of technique that you have to remaster or relearn or explore more for this set of paintings specifically?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: I think I was taught to use this technique, but the traditional way of doing it, is with a much more neutral tone-down color. Things like burnt sienna, raw umber, these are earth tones. Imagine dark colors, much more neutral colors. That's a very, very old traditional technique. To use more saturated colors is something that is a little bit more contemporary and it's something that you really have to train your eye as you are working with it because every color next to a bright color is affected differently.
Kousha Navidar: There's so much going on in these pieces. There's the sense of dichotomy. There's the sense of elemental just connection to the earth and aspirational dream spaces. Is there a question that you're hoping to provoke or maybe just one of many questions that you're hoping to provoke in folks after they leave? Maybe not an answer to that question, but they leave thinking about something? Is there that for you?
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Yes. I think the question of, what is your dream? Why do we dream of these things specifically, thinking so much about properties and home and this very concrete American dream? What is the emotional resonance of that dream and the fallout? There's a lot, I think, of emotional connection to the physical space and there's a video piece in the show that has a little bit more- there's a couple of quotes that come from some of the source material that are in the video. It talks about the American Black middle class.
Some of the clips are from 1968, and they talk about the lack of loans and things that were-- the histories of the inability to access these spaces. I think in that, I want people to think about how this dream materialized, and some of the ramifications of trying to still achieve this dream that's been set out.
Kousha Navidar: It is layered and the work, I just got to say, is gorgeous. We have to stop there for time, but listeners check it out. Adrienne Elise Tarver, interdisciplinary artist and creator of the new exhibit titled Where the Waters Go. It's on display now at the Dinner Gallery through June 29th. Adrienne, thank you so much.
Adrienne Elise Tarver: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
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