| ABOUT | |||
Catherine Tafur was born in Lima, Peru to a Peruvian father and a Japanese mother. After spending the first part of her childhood in Peru and the latter part in Wilmington, Delaware, she moved to New York City to study at the Cooper Union School of Art where she earned her BFA. She now lives and works in New York City.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My works are narratives about defilement and psychological damage. Figures are mutilated, defective, confrontational, perversely hyper-sexualized, and tormented by an unattainable need for connection. Moments of crisis arise upon the realization of the human capacity for violence and the discovery of evil that hides behind normality. Presenting a space in which to ruminate on this dark side of human nature poses the question of how to retain integrity and dignity in the face of trauma.
- Catherine Tafur
PRESS QUOTES
“…Tafur's piece, “Filter,” striking and intense in its size, use of bold color and subject matter… explores ideas of gender deconstruction and loss of innocence.”
- Meredith Deliso, 24 Seven: Art SCENE, 2007.
“These “changelings” bare their innocence, pain, sexual pervasiveness and mutations openly to the viewer. Both beautiful and disturbing, some recall mythical combinations of human-beast not made from divine sources but rather painful interventions.”
- Diane Bowen, Saatchi Online, 2009.
“…Catherine Tafur approaches her work with great earnestness, but this is not the only reason that we find such a fresh vitality in her art… We are reminded that for an artist, the act of making art is an act of introspection.”
- Noorelkys Blazekovic, Irreversible: An International Art Project Magazine, 2010.
“Connecting with Tafur's art is not what happens - the shock of the grotesque surreal repels, but then locks in for real. It's the wicked humor and high technique that does it: the shark mermaid beribboned B&D high above Times Square, Pig Beast as a baby, Elephant Turtle whose ears are legs. Not your standard bestiary. Not your standard art. So gimme more!”
- Bob Holman, 2010.
“…her work makes us aware of the irreconcilable conflict between our extraordinary capacity to love and our terror that we may not be worth loving.
What we come quickly to understand from this work is that what pulls at our hearts eventually tears open our flesh.”
- Eric Fischl, 2010.
“Her images are strong and contemporary. They are a unique mix of avant-garde, horror and science fiction, with both North and South American iconography: Yankees on one hand, Incas on the other. It is a powerful, mythical presentation of a human, especially feminine struggle for normal existence as seen through the eyes of a very personal, deep experience, growing up within the horrifying urban alien matrix.”
- Uri Lehavi, Art Channel, 2011.
CATHERINE TAFUR: ARTWORK
Containing 68 full-color pages printed on high quality premium lustre finish paper, this book contains a large selection of artwork images dating from 2003 - 2010, and includes text by renowned poet Bob Holman and internationally acclaimed artist Eric Fischl.
ISBN 978-0-578-06292-1