INNOCENCE, WITH A TWIST

What stands at 4' 9" and has a penchant for monkey cocks and asses? No, not a primordial dwarf in a Linda Lovelace movie. It's Tara Espinoza! She's a little newt of a printmaker, but don't let her diminutive size and giggly manner fool you. There's a lot more than Barney Goes To Cambodia going on in Tara's creative mind and artwork. Ms. Espinoza's recent body of work could be described as playful. Yeah, playful in that "Is that Fievel The Mouse wearing a strap-on?" kinda way. The world Tara creates on paper is filled with cute cartoon rabbits, chickens, dogs and such doing very nasty things. Her work ranges from images like The Incident With Pink Soap (where a fully cooked, headless chicken is slipping on a bar of soap) to Consequences With Pink Soap (where the chicken is mid-tumble with the soap wedged firmly in its deep-fried ass). The work goes on that way, making you say, "Awwww," and "Oh fuck!" all in the same breath. I don't even have the words to describe my favorite print of hers, The Assassination. The only way I can sum it up is: bunnies in high-heels anally probing a beheaded donkey. Tara explained to me in seven words or less that her work is about process. She elaborated and compared its subject matter to the process of life: "We live, we eat, we poop, we have sex (if we're lucky), and then we die." How true.
See Tara’s prints in her current show, "Cooking Up Chocolate Bunnies", running thru the month of April at Gallery 853 in Columbus, Ohio.
EMAIL TARA HERE.