taracostelloart@gmail.com

My paintings examine unfamiliar spaces and the emotive power of the interplay of forms.  Layers of Venetian plaster and raw pigment build up to create uncanny spaces in which viewers are called to find unexpected beauty in the relationships between rich textures and primitive marks.  I aim to create spaces with variable contexts and perspectives, some hidden from sight, and some starkly unconcealed.  While my work at times emulates or alludes to landscape, it is the landscape of emotional experience rather than a reflection of any specific time or place.

The spaces in these paintings stem from my own experiences, but the work is more focused on the ineffable pleasure of simply entering into unfamiliar territory, finding new viewpoints, and seeking out new connections. The work is created spontaneously and experimentally. It also invites an improvisational engagement between itself and the viewer.

My newer work seeks to move further into abstraction by limiting my palette to primarily black and eliminating previously employed points of reference such as horizon lines.  Instead, simpler geometrical shapes are etched into black backgrounds to allow the sumptuous layers of plaster to reveal their own latent truths and to further confound any attempt to maintain a fixed (limited) perspective.  Above all, my work is based in the desire for formlessness and the search for unforeseen possibilities.