kara tanaka.

www.uber.com/kara

Born 1983, Modesto, California.

Lives and works in Los Angeles.

EDUCATION

2008 MFA Art, Jacob K. Javits Fellow, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

2006 Postgraduate Diploma, Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK

2005 BA Studio Art, Magna Cum Laude, University of California, Irvine, CA

ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2008 Fragmented on the Night Sea of Eternity, The Mint Gallery, Valencia, CA

Mad Amour, with Marco Rios, Simon Preston Gallery, New York

2006 Naming the Ugly Spirit, Michael Poppyfield Projects, Valencia, CA

2005 Self Laid Bare, Room Gallery, Irvine, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2008 Balloon Self-Portrait No.4, C-3PO, Exercising for Exorcizing, My Lights (Kokopelli), Simon Preston Gallery, New York (June)

We Want A New Object, CalArts MFA Show, Curated by Malik Gaines and Christine Y. Kim, Acuna-Hansen Gallery, Beta Level, Black Dragon Society, David Salow Gallery, Fifth Floor, Kontainer, The Mountain, Peres Project, Telic Exchange, Chinatown, Los Angeles

2007 My Buddy, The New Wight Gallery Biennial. UCLA Wight Gallery, Los Angeles

The Other Project, with the Attempters. Curated by Evelyn Serrano. Fire Valley, Valencia, CA

AlumChum, Undergraduate Alumni Show, Catalyst Gallery, Irvine, CA

Top View Ranchu, D300 Gallery & A402 Gallery, Valencia, CA

The Juice Is Looseâ€¦ A Big Painting Show, Curated by Rosha Yaghmai, 507 Rose, Venice, CA

The Attempters, P.B.E.A., The Lime Gallery, Valencia, CA

2006 Lost Streams: The First Frontier Was The Waters Edge, Estacion Tijuana, Tijuana, Mexico

November, Curated by Jeffrey Uslip, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York

It Was the Blurst of Times, Curated by Jason Kunke, Commerce Street Artist Warehouse, Houston, Texas

Agent Once, Acuna-Hansen, Los Angeles

Rag and Bone, Curated by Frog Morris and Jeanine Woollard, Three Colts Gallery, London

Black Autumn Gold Supported by The Union, Meals & SUVs Gallery, London

The Union, The Laurie Grove Baths, London

2005 Fist of Long Arms Finds Abandons Grey Skies, Cornucopia, Madrid, Spain

Ive Done This Before, Slanguage Gallery, Wilmington, CA

BoundLess, Stenersenmuseet, Oslo, Norway

2004 Yank, Andrea Bowers and Sam Durants studio, Los Angeles

Or, Bannings Landing, Wilmington, CA

Platinum Snapmeat: Outfest Festival, Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles with Ruben Ochoas Class:C Gallery, One Stop Only Series

PUBLICATIONS AND PRESS

2008 Blasius, Ina Viola and Stine Marie Jacobsen. 29025 Eveningside Drive. Val Verde CA. Lulu: Los Angeles.

2007 Romano, Juliana. My Buddy: New Wight Gallery Biennial. Los Angeles: Typecraft Inc. Wood & Jones, UCLA Arts.

Uslip, Jeffrey. Ten By Ten: Jeffrey Uslip on Kara Tanaka. Uber. Feb. 2007.

2006 Cotter, Holland. Art in Review: November. The New York Times. 22 December 2006.

Serrano, Evelyn. Lost Streams: The First Frontier was the Water's Edge. Tijuana. 2006

Tanaka, Kara. This is a Body Hijack. Agent Once: AGO: Volume I. Ed. Jason Keller and Kevin Wong. Los Angeles. 2006.

Morris, Frog, Kara Tanaka and Jeanine Woollard. Rag and Bone. London. 2006

Almborg, Emanuel and Kara Tanaka. Union: A Good Idea. London. 2006

2005 Martinez, Daniel Joseph and David Levi Strauss. Teaching After the End. Art Journal Vol. 64, No. 3 (2005): 28-45.

HONORS AND AWARDS

2007 Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education

2005 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, University of California, Irvine

Elizabeth and Thomas Tierney Scholarship

I Am A Vessel in the Void (Between Charon and the Moon), 2006
Installed at Estacion Tijuana, Mexico for “Lost Streams: The First Fontier was the Water’s Edge”

Some thoughts...

The hominoid of the future will be the Exploded Human.

I am looking to expose the spaces where reality can be altered or forgotten, believing that if one can cause pinhole ruptures in the fabric of existence, the vacuum of the universe will shred the patterning of human logic and spark an explosion and an exponential expansion of the human mind. In an alchemical experiment combining magical realism, time travel, and ancient and modern mythologies, I am attempting to conjure open the gateways to the netherworld of the mind.

An interest in the split Self, or the self-spawning of a secondary and equal self, runs through my work. Between the Self and the Self lies the sticky terrain of a power structure based on knowledge and manipulation that is locked in place by sheer necessity, as one Self needs the other to survive. My recent work includes a performance titled Exercising for Exorcizing, a yearlong attempt to exorcize the doppelganger that had commandeered my body-form and to become a Reverse Schizophrenic. I have constructed an interstellar telescope pointed at Pluto and its moon, Charon, in an attempt to prop open the portal to allow free inter-dimensional travel between the lands of the living and the dead. And currently I find myself laughing with the ghost of Yukio Mishima about the cruelty and hilarity of the climax of existential crisis, and the dilemmas of non-existence, transcendence, and transmigration.

Iâ€™m an artist based in Los Angeles, attending the MFA in Art program at the CalArts. Past educational endeavors include a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2006 and a BA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine in 2005.

NEWS:

Fat Head Balloon Self-Portrait, Exercising for Exorcising (Mein Doppelganger), My Lights (Kokopelli), C3PO

Tim Hawkinson, Kara Tanaka, Josh Tonsfeldt, Michelle Lopez

Simon Preston Gallery, New York

Wednesday, June 18 - Wednesday, July 30, 2008

http://www.simonprestongallery.com

We Want A New Object

CalArts MFA Graduate Exhibition, Chinatown, Los Angeles

Saturday, May 31 - Saturday, June 7, 2008

Curated by Christine Y Kim and Malik Gaines

Acuna-Hansen Gallery, Betalevel, Black Dragon Society, Fifth Floor Gallery, Kontainer, The Mountain, Peres Projects, David Salow Gallery, and Telic Arts Exchange

http://www.calartsmfa.com