Tamara Wilson will be an artist in residence from January 15th-31st in preparation for her February exhibit/installation. Join us for her opening on February 7th.

“I am inspired by domestic spaces, memories, investigations of how things work, daily routines, and industrial materials, but also the need to escape it all and dream. My work is a reaction to my overwhelmed consciousness from the constant stimulus of our media driven world. My ideal creative environment is somewhere between an auto shop and a sewing room in a place beyond the reach of cell towers on top of a mountain that is weathered in with cotton candy clouds. The push and pull of my pragmatic and childish mind fabricate my ideas.

I have started to really appreciate the feminine qualities of my work. The media attention that women have commanded in recent years has guided me to take a closer look at how I am manipulating materials and ideas. I create feminine interventions with domestic objects and construction materials, disregarding both the object’s and material’s intended use. I use domestic craft materials traditionally considered feminine, such as thread and fabric and I strip them of their associations by using them just as art material. In parallel, I do the same for masculine aspects of the objects and construction materials I use such as hardwood flooring and electrical components. Within my work these worlds intertwine allowing them to become something new just as the art world does for myself.

‘Macaroni and Cheese’ is a mix of site-specific and studio art work made from craft and industrial materials, such as building supplies, paper and felt. Macaroni and cheese is fascinating, it is dreamy and ordinary at the same time, the show explores the many sides and meanings of this dish.”

Tamara Wilson is an Alaska born installation artist currently working in Fairbanks, AK. She returned to Alaska after receiving her Master of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM in 2014. Tamara has transformed a once abandoned building foundation into a live-work studio just South of Fairbanks on the banks of the Tanana River.