BIOGRAPHY
While she appreciates modern technique, Tamara Ann Burgh can not ignore the tactile appeal of material from nature.
The combination of the two in her work perhaps reflects the two worlds she inhabits: that formed by a suburban upbringing and that influenced by her Eskimo heritage. This dichotomy reveals itself in an important body of mixed media pieces entitled The Enculturated White Man: If the Indians Had Won. A project she's been working on for nearly 10 years. She recently finished Nature Consciousness, a series of oil paintings using three motifs (cloud, hill & trees) to explore the kinetic and possible conscious relationships between elements of nature.
Tamara has found basketry to be a medium in which she can integrate natural materials such as gourds, pine needles, fibers, spruce pitch, beads, bees wax . . . into a form that explores and expresses her Native heritage and archetypal and personal myths.
Raised in Colorado, Tamara spent nearly eight years in New Mexico in the middle of a community of other artists. She exhibited her work locally, including a two-woman installation entitled My Life as a Dress; Inspired by animistic tribal peoples who seemingly dress to reflect their beliefs; Tamara created dresses to reveal what she believed about herself and/or her world view. Her drawings are part of permanent collections at the college and public library in Nome, Alaska, and University of Alaska, Juneau. She also worked two years on a project conducted by an internationally recognized artist.Just as important to her art is the library Tamara has established. Books by Joseph Campbell, Gary Zukav, J. Krishnamurti and other metaphysical writers have been strong influences.
Tamara graduated with a studio art degree from Illinois State University , which she attended on a talent scholarship. After travel and work in Europe, Australia and Alaska , she entered the publishing field as a graphic artist and illustrator in Chicago . This led to a studio business designing product and contract sculpting for the giftware industry with clients across the country. Tamara produced and marketed a line of Christmas ornaments and a set of seven polychrome Eskimo figurines. Download a PDF file of giftware/commercial art resume 1988 -- 2004
"Most of what I have learned is through experience--my experiences are processed through a library of books--my processes are reinterpreted through art"
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