A nice little interview peice by Bob Self of Baby Tattoo! Read the transcript below!
Dark Art Bizarre Magazine, May Issue 2009 By Bob Self
GREETINGS BIZARRE READERS, Artists generally don't need to be pretty. An artist is judged by their work, not by their fine ass. Some might even consider a fine artist with a fine ass to be overkill - like a super-rich guy with a super-huge cock. Nevertheless, some people have it all.
Artist Tara McPherson is a beautiful, urban girly girl sexy enough to make your jaw drop and tough enough to break that jaw, and her creations have been knocking people out for a decade. She's achieved success in every art arena she's entered, be it rock 'n' roll posters, comic books or gallery exhibitions. "The key to my happiness as an artist is to be able to switch around what I do," Tara explains. "After painting for an exhibition, I make a poster, I design a toy, I make a print, then I'm ready to paint again."
Tara's iconic gig posters have advertised Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, Elvis Costello and The Melvins. She's well know to comic fans for her work for publisher Vertigo, whose stable of titles include Preacher and Sandman. As for gallery art, virtually everything shown at her recent Rio De Janeiro and New York shows sold out, although you can still get some of the books featuring her collections, such as The Art Of Tara McPherson from Dark Horse or The Art of Modern Rock by Chronicle.
LUST PROPERTY Tara's work often features nude females and its sometime hard to tell how old they're supposed to be. I worry whether she intends them to appear emotionally and sexually mature or it they're Lolitas and I should be jailed for finding them attractive.
"Most of my characters are sexually mature woman, but when I do paint girls that appear on the younger side I try to be aware of what situation I'm placing them in," she says. "My Somewhere Under The Rainbow series features girls who are obviously youthful, so I was careful not to over-sexualize them. I wanted to show adolescents evolving mentally by panting physical manifestations of their thoughts - literally to show their musings and fears growing out of their heads in the form of umbrellas, balloons, and skull-shaped flowers. In contrast when I paint nudes, they are grown woman. They're fully formed and self-assured. They're icons facing challenges of heart and mind. And its OK for you to want them!" BARE ESSENTIALS Tara's often told that her characters look like her - even though they're naked. "Yeah, I'm not modest at all!" she laughs. "Most of my good friends have seen me naked at some point. I prefer nudity, as without clothes to date my characters, they're timeless."
A recurring element in Tara's work is a heart-shaped void through the chest. Does she have any real-world body mods? "I had a clit-hood piercing for six months. It was fun at first but then it lessened my sensations, so I took it out. Sex felt even better when it was gone." I warned you. Talented, sexy, and not afraid to show it: Tara McPherson has it all.