Adrienne Elise Tarver | Ochi Gallery

Adrienne Elise Tarver is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural worker with a practice that spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, textiles, and video. Tarver’s work addresses the complexity and invisibility of Black female identity, often inspired mythologized assumptions of the African diaspora, cultural icons, oral and speculative histories centering domestic space, and archetypes including the tropical seductress and the spiritual matriarch. Tarver’s recent explorations of tarot as a system of agency and interpretation—a lexicon of symbols with the potential to alter the course of an individual and manifest societal shifts.Adrienne Elise Tarver (b. 1985, New Jersey, US) received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Boston University. Tarver’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, CT; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta, GA; Wedge Curatorial in Toronto, Canada; A-M Gallery in Sydney, Australia; Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD; BRIC Arts Media Project Room, Wave Hill, Hollis Taggart, and Dinner Gallery in New York, NY; and OCHI in Los Angeles, CA and Sun Valley, ID. Tarver is the recipient of awards and residencies including a 2022-2023 Silver Art Projects Residency, 2023 Artshack Ceramics Residency, and a 2022 Nancy Graves Visual Art Grant. She has been awarded commissions for projects with New York Metro Transit Authority, Public Art Fund, Google, Art Aspen, and Pulse Art Fair. Tarver’s work has been featured in various publications including The New York Times, Forbes, Brooklyn Magazine, ArtNews, ArtNet, Blouin ArtInfo, Whitewall Magazine, and Hyperallergic. Tarver has held numerous leadership roles in arts and education including Director of Programs at the National Academy of Design, Associate Chair of Fine Arts at Savanna College of Art and Design, and Director of Art & Design for the Harlem School of the Arts. Tarver lives and works in New York, NY and is represented by OCHI.