about

Essentially, I’m curious.  About everything.
I make art, I write, I read, I wonder.  I am intrigued by the way we think and feel, how we live and find meaning. Why we fall apart, and how we hurt and how we heal.

Instagram: tanjastark_artist

Born in Mackay, Australia and now working from a bush studio outside of Brisbane Tanja Stark works across mediums in oils and acrylics, mixed media and found materials, ink and clay.  Beginning in 1999, she started working  with paper, fire, earth, ash and clay on her poignant Burn series of work.  It was at this time she developed the archetypal iconography and symbolism that continues to today; elemental spirals, paperbark, stove elements, fire and ash, feathers, clay paper and bones.  This continued through the Containment series, Subcutanea and in recent years Suburban Gothic and the Sublime Divine.

Her seemingly prescient writings on psychological and spiritual themes in contemporary art and society are explored in book chapters with Bloomsbury Press and Routledge Academic Press around psychology and creativity, depth psychology and archetypal imagery. She has worked in illustration and design, therapeutic counselling, writing and research.

“…dealings with artists, for instance, require great prudence; they are acquainted with all classes of society, and for that very reason dangerous”  King Leopold of Belgium to Queen Victoria 1845.

Stark has most recently been creating Sublime Vessels, a series of raw, hand built clay forms exhibited February 2018 and 2019.

For forthcoming exhibitions, talks and workshops, open studio days, creative art, writing or research collaborations, residencies or commissions please contact art.words.ideas@gmail.com or ph: (Australia) : 0414 658 235

The arts are not a way of making a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”  Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country