artist profile
Tavares Strachan
born
1979
lives and works
New York, USA
education
BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, USA, 2003
MFA, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, USA, 2006
about the artist
Navigating through the polarizing dichotomies of presence and absence, visibility and invisibility, and man and nature, Tavares Strachan has engineered a multidisciplinary artistic practice that mobilizes our visual, intellectual, and emotional faculties. Aeronautical and astronomical science, deep-sea exploration, and extreme climatology are but some of the thematic arenas out of which Strachan creates performative allegories that tell of cultural displacement, human aspiration, and mortal limitation. His ambitious enterprise is fueled by the artist's desire to express himself as well as to educate and empower younger generations. Many of his art projects have incorporated lecture series and classroom discussions, delivered to and implemented with the students and children who come into contact with his displays, so that each is given an opportunity to engage personally and voice their individual reactions. A recipient of accolades such as the Alice B. Kimball Fellowship and the Tiffany Foundation Grant, Strachan has staged solo exhibitions in the Bahamas, Germany, UK and the United States, at venues including the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, the Grand Arts in Kansas City, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He has also participated in group shows held at spaces such as the Queens Museum of Art in New York, USA; the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany; the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; the SAFN Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland; and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, USA. His work was also included in Roundabout at the City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand, and Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel. Strachan represented The Bahamas in the nation’s inaugural pavilion at the 55th International Venice Biennale and also participated in the 16th Biennale de Lyon in 2013.
