Tara-Bee Stephenson
Fine Art - Painting and Printmaking BA Hons
Glasgow School of Art
Specialisms: Painting / Fine Art /
Location: London, United Kingdom
Tara-Bee Stephenson
First Name: Tara-Bee
Last Name: Stephenson
Specialisms: Painting / Fine Art
Sectors:
My Location: London, United Kingdom
University / College: Glasgow School of Art
Course / Program Title: Fine Art - Painting and Printmaking BA Hons
About
The way memories change over time seems to continuously appear as a theme within my practice; the synchrony between private and personal recollections, inherited stories, and half remembered fairy-tales blur together into something mythic. Most of my work begins with fragments: childhood memories, symbols I’m drawn to, stories passed down… things that feel familiar and strange at the same time.
Through painting and woodwork, I return to motifs of ritual, theatre, and tradition, drawing from familiarities I grew up with cross-culturally. My concern with working with wood lies in its relationship to accumulation of memory and endurance, and its traditional engagement with craft and tactility.
With these works consolidated in a little playbill, ‘Memory to Mythology’, I aim to explore the tensions between instability of memory and narrative illusion, where recollection starts to behave like theatre.
Memory and how it evolves over time is a recurring theme in my practice. Memory to Mythology looks at how personal memories, inherited stories, and half-remembered fairy tales can overlap and become difficult to separate. This project begins with familiar symbols from my own childhood and stories passed down through different cultures. Through painting and woodwork, I explore ideas around ritual, theatre, tradition, and craft. Wood, for its associations with memory, endurance, and making, became a central and intimate part of this project, setting the scene as a both a staged and domestic space. Memory to Mythology brings these works together to explore how memory can start to feel like fiction.