Tara Esperanza: Plant Life of the West
Bay Area artist Tara Esperanza explores the beauty and diversity of native California plant life through her intimate, photo-realistic paintings of succulents. From traveling with her husband through Mexico, to moving out West and falling in love with the desert landscape, Tara’s work encompasses her life experiences and travels along with her deep love and respect for the plant community.
Tell me about your background and where your creative journey began.
My creative journey formally began in college. I attended the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and graduated Cum Laude with an MFA. It was there that I really got to explore different mediums and hone in on my love for painting. I was fortunate to have incredible professors including Laurie Kaplowitz, Anne Leone, Brian MacFarlane, & Severin Haines that would impact me for life. They taught me solid fundamentals in art and tools to last me a lifetime. At that time all of what I painted was dictated by my assigned projects and particular areas of focus in education. I was very focused on the technicality, execution, and understanding of fine art. Through that, I developed my focus on light, color, and shifting perspectives, elements that have persisted in my work, even when my styles have changed. In college, I traveled to Europe and studied landscape painting at Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art while living and painting in the town that Gaugain was from.
After college and my travels around Europe, I was more interested in learning about my own country and diverse cultures within, so I headed west. I chose Santa Fe, New Mexico because I was inspired by the landscape, the light, and the culture, being very different from where I grew up in Massachusetts. And, there is a strong emphasis on art in Santa Fe, so it felt like a good place to land as an emerging artist. While living there I continued to paint landscapes and travel.
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
Currently I live in California and I am focused on painting succulents and I am inspired daily by my surroundings on my runs and walks. I love living in The Bay Area and I have the benefit of enjoying the outdoors all year long. I am a plant lover, a long distance runner, and a nature lover, so I feel right at home here. I see succulents everywhere. I have a hawk eye for succulents and I photograph plants that I find striking. I also have favorite plants in my neighborhood that I visit often to see how they are growing and how they change throughout the seasons. I am interested in celebrating the diversity in the plants, how they live in community, and hold space together. I have a huge library of plant inspiration that I can reference at any time. Everything I paint comes from my own images. So, I have always focused on and been inspired by the natural world, perspective, culture, and color.
How has your work shifted and evolved over time?
As I mentioned earlier it began with very technical studies that I was assigned by my professors. After I graduated and moved to New Mexico, my world opened up to the new culture and color, and challenged me to look deeper for the subjects meaningful to me. I continued to paint the natural world around me with a focus on the southwest landscape and light. It was there that I fell in love with a painter and we would often go on plein air painting adventures. The landscape of New Mexico was very exhilarating and it seemed endless. My husband is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico and I was blessed to travel there with him. After our extensive travels in Mexico, I was moved by the magical realism of Mexico, it left a huge impression on me. I loved everything about Mexico; the folk tales, food, music, traditions, architecture, colors, and the culture overall. I felt the magic of Mexico and was motivated to share that through my creativity. I started to develop my own style of realistic imagery with shifting perspectives. My paintings became a compilation of memories of places, people, tradition, architecture, reflecting the magic of Mexico that I felt and wanted others to experience.
In addition to painting, I started making ice cream, first as a creative activity, mixing ice cream flavors was like mixing my paint colors to me, but it soon became a side hustle, and eventually a small business when life got real and my responsibilities grew. So, I ran with it and started Tara’s Organic Ice Cream in 2005. I mention the business because for many years I was fully focused on keeping it alive and I had no time or energy to paint for several years.
When I slowly got back into painting, it was with no real direction. I just painted to paint until I got a commission from a friend. That was the big change, the catalyst, that brought me to my current body of work and drove me to ignite my art career. The commission was for a large succulent painting (plant & size specific). Being a plant lover, I accepted. It was a huge challenge and in the process I became obsessed with succulents. I fell in love and haven’t stopped painting succulents since.
Upon reflection, I feel like what I am focused on now ties everything together. My paintings are very technical, realistic, and back to nature while at the same time I dive deep into the plants and offer a new perspective. It is my intimate viewpoint of the plants that I paint while I continue to shift the perspective to offer a new vision inspired by what I see in nature.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
There is no typical day. In addition to being a painter I am still a small business owner, so I juggle a lot, and with limited time, my studio time is very precious to me! My studio is in my home and I love that it affords me the opportunity to paint late at night and roll into bed. It is super comfortable and convenient. I call myself a monogamous painter as I’m in one relationship at a time and I am in a very close, intimate relationship with the canvas and I really enjoy that my painting is the last thing I see before bed and the first thing I see when I wake up. I usually listen to music or podcasts with my animals around to keep me company and the walls covered in plant inspiration and art cards from exhibits/artists I adore. One big way that my art practice has grown or changed is in my focus & dedication to my practice. For many years I had no discipline in painting. I had no real direction and I honestly doubted the likelihood of supporting myself as an artist.
So I spent years focused on keeping the business alive, working all day, every day, with no time or energy to paint regularly. After a year or so of trying to make the time to get back into painting, I got that commission for a succulent painting. At that time I reevaluated my life and knew I needed to find a way to prioritize painting again. That year I set my New Years intention to show up in the art community locally and to get involved. I decided to actually attempt to show my art and show up for other artists. That was something I had not done in 10 years. I started reaching out to artists for studio visits and I actively went to art openings and fairs etc… I knew what I wanted and have been working on manifesting that since then. From then on I have had a fierce drive to grow as an artist and be an artrepeneur. I also decided I wasn’t too old and it was time to truly follow my lifelong passion of having a career in fine art. I also realized that I did not need to give up my small business. I just needed to find a way to create the much needed balance to do it all.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
Definitely my travels with my husband, Raciel Esperanza, also a painter. He and I really connected deeply through art. Art is what drew us together. HA! No pun intended. It is awesome to have a partner that I can speak to about what I am working on and vice versa. We feed off each other. I can share aspects of my work and he understands, and can offer constructive criticism. He is also incredibly supportive and he definitely encourages me to pursue my career in art and to aim high.
Traveling to Europe and studying the masters led to me creating landscapes and holding focus in nature, inspired by the light and landscape, that is what I painted. Traveling to Oaxaca with Raciel opened my mind up in so many different ways. It was a sensory experience that I later communicated through my artistic expression. I was extremely moved by the culture. Having the opportunity to not only travel to Oaxaca, but to be a part of a huge, artistic, family was my unique experience. I became immersed into the culture. I felt so connected to Mexico that I believe it is a past life thing. Needless to say Mexico changed not only what I painted, but how I painted. Those experiences shaped my art by inspiring a freedom to create imagery the way I saw it in my head. The magic of Mexico made my dreams come to life through my paintings in my Las Ventanas a Mexico series.
Now to complete the circle the painting commission was the most recent experience to impact my work. When I accepted the commission I planned to do it and go back to painting about Mexico. I had no idea what an impact that would have on me as an artist. Not only did I continue with the succulent subject matter, It reignited my motivation to pursue a career in art.
How has Instagram impacted your art career?
I love Instagram! C’mon ~ I found Visionary Art Collective through IG. I have discovered so many incredible artists and have made friends with fellow artists locally and abroad through IG. I am honestly inspired by it daily & I think it is an incredible tool. I also love how artists and the art community really show up for one another and share resources and opportunities. I have discovered various art opportunities through IG as well (including this interview). It has been exceptionally important this past year with the pandemic and the inability to show up anywhere in person. However, IG has allowed us as artists to show up in so many more places virtually. I feel like it highlights the awesome side of the artworld in addition to keeping us globally connected. In addition, I have been able to sell a little bit of art and some art merchandise through IG. That is really fun and something that I would like to expand on.
What are your future goals and aspirations?
Currently the only thing on my calendar is my next solo show that is scheduled at Mercury 20 Gallery in Oakland, CA in January 2022. I will be working hard all year to produce paintings for that. In the meantime, I have applied to several art opportunities already this year and I am confident that more opportunities will be presented throughout the year.
My goal is to generate more time to create and to create more! I hope to have more opportunities to show my paintings. I am focused on continuing to show, grow, and gain greater visibility overall. I aspire to be a full time painter and have a career in fine art on top of my culinary art career. I really want my art to be available in ways to people that also are not in a position to invest in an original painting. I do sell prints and other merchandise from my painting images. Mostly through posts on IG and some word of mouth. I would like to get that more set up as a store on my website. I want to make the shopping experience easy for people and make it more accessible.
If all goes well, in October I am planning to guide another Art & Culture Tour to Oaxaca Mexico. My husband and I started the Esperanza Art & Culture Tour in 2019. The goal was to host this tour annually. Of course 2020 was cancelled, but I am hoping that the world makes progress on the pandemic front. I look forward to returning to Oaxaca. Though I am not currently painting about Mexico a piece of my heart is always there. With this I stay connected artistically to Mexico and continue to be inspired. I also have an IG account @esperanzaartandculture that is all my photos from Oaxaca. I would love to see the Esperanza Art and Culture Tour continue and grow as well.
Follow Tara on Instagram: @taraesperanza
Website: www.taraesperanza.com