Archetypal

• Prize
  Bronze in Science/Other
• Photographer
  Tara A. Cronin

Here, accompanying mythological references, I work primarily with my own blood, with “plant blood” - chlorophyll, and with pen and pencil. Working in a rhythmic meditation and repetition onto the image itself, I try bring to the forefront the contrast between our invisible our and more physical daily existence. This contrast makes up the majesty that is our biohistorical experience. The references are like remnants kept loose to the extreme; that nebula is the state in which these creatures have entered our current era. Utilizing the language of Myth is a major method of solving our problems while we wade through this Thing called Life. As it permeates like a ghost or a distant echo of our very origins, so do these bones and artifacts speak to the idea that this can never quite leave our instinctual artillery of survival-tools. Writing addresses a language — not verbal; it is a language that all life shares. I cannot pin down what that may be, but blood, a life-giving-material to me is a good place to begin.

Tara Cronin is an artist working in various mediums focusing on alternative photographic methods, works on paper, installation and book-arts. She has pursued an art career that has both helped her solve problems in her own internal space as well as in the space she finds herself situated externally. Tara received a BA in Writing from New School University, and an MFA in Photography from Bard College and the ICP-Bard Program, and has Twice-earned the ICP Director’s Fellowship Award. During her graduate and post-graduate work, Tara explored this interface between the material and the individual