Tara Esperanza: I SEE YOU
October 23 - November 28, 2020
Mercury 20 is pleased to present Tara Esperanza’s first solo show at the gallery, I SEE YOU, an exhibit of large paintings of succulents with a new perspective.
Since 2018, Tara has been creating succulent paintings. In late 2017 she was commissioned to make a large painting (30″ x 64″) of particular succulents. Though at the time she had not paid much attention to succulents, she was a plant lover, so she gladly accepted. She began paying closer attention to succulents on her daily dog walks and runs. It quickly became an obsession and from there the series was born. She realized that she had passed so many gorgeous plants for years and never noticed their obvious beauty. She aims to make them seen through her paintings. Tara says, “They are beautiful and deserve to be seen in a big way, so I paint them big.”
She is interested in the plant personalities. The abundant varieties of texture, color, shape, and how succulents change with the seasons. She celebrates their diversity, how succulents share space, lean on each other, or hold each other up. Tara’s paintings look deep into the plants. In I SEE YOU she aims to bring the viewer in to offer a new perspective and share her intimate viewpoint of succulents through her art.
Available Work
Tara Esperanza
Tara Esperanza earned a BFA in Painting and graduated cum laude from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. In addition, she studied plein-air painting in Brittany, France. Tara was born and raised in Massachusetts. Inspired by the light and landscape, she later moved to Santa Fe, NM. She now resides in Oakland California where succulents grow all year long. Tara has exhibited her paintings in galleries throughout the Bay Area, including Mercury 20 Gallery in Oakland, Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery in Lafayette, Orangeland Gallery in San Francisco, and Marin Society of Artists in San Rafael. As well as Sturt Haaga Gallery in Los Angeles, San Diego Museum of Art, and the Museum of Northern California Art in Chico. Tara is also a long-distance runner and she studies plant life on her runs. She is inspired daily by the beauty that surrounds us and she captures images that live on through her art.