Tara Denny

I am an artist working with objects to materialise the vocabulary of the body. 

Tara Denny (Naarm/Melbourne) works with her own lived experiences as an access point to reflect on lineages of women’s resistance and to materialise what might otherwise be lost to amnesia. Denny’s intensely research-focused process looks at the motif of the mad woman troupe and what this means in a social context today through objects and narrative sharing of using the term mad(ness) research into mad people's history, literature, culture and activism. Denny claims the mad woman has come out of the attic and we are in need of conversations to help heal the monstrous within colonial structure. Denny looks to a Feminist – Disability theory of embodiment to create in her studio. Denny uses the material of wax as an extension of her own queer body using her hands to create bodily sensations in order to reconcile with these historical archetypes. Using the process of casting the outpourings, marked with their fingerprints are transformed into metals.

Tara Denny is a Gertrude Studio Artist, 2024-25. Denny graduated in (2022) at the Victorian College of Fine Arts, Melbourne University (Honours). Recent solo shows include: Blindside Ari (2024), Maroondah Federation Estate (2024), AirSpace, Sydney, (2023), Felt Space, Adelaide (2023), Melbourne’s cultural event ‘Open House’, Melbourne (2022), Cathedral Cabinet, Melbourne (2022), Platform Arts (Geelong), (2022), George Paton Gallery, Melbourne (2022) Recent group shows include: Greenhouse Offsite, Melbourne, (2023). TheTurning is the exchange between Lilac City Studio (Gadigal) Sydney and BLINDSIDE, Melbourne (Naarm) hosted by Schmick Contemporary, Sydney (2023) and Blindside, ‘All World Are Flat’- (2021).