About the Program
Adrienne Elise Tarver’s (b. 1985, New Jersey) She who sits, presented on hundreds of JCDecaux bus shelters and newsstands in New York City (100), Chicago (150), and Boston (50), features a series of paintings foregrounding the bus shelter as a site of physical respite and sociopolitical catalyzation. An interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York, Tarver’s practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, textiles, and video. Her work addresses multifaceted Black female identities, including history within domestic spaces, the fantasy of the tropical seductress, and the archetype of the all-knowing spiritual matriarch.
Tarver’s Public Art Fund exhibition explores the visibility and invisibility of Black women and the seats they can—or cannot—take within public and social spaces. She created a series of paintings of Black women, depicted within scenes of rest and locales of ease. The seated women in Tarver’s paintings are positioned as companions to people sitting and resting at these bus shelters, sharing a simple moment in the midst of a bustling city and complicated life. This exhibition will mark the artist’s first solo public art exhibition.
Adrienne Elise Tarver’s exhibition She who sits is curated by Public Art Fund Assistant Curator Jenée-Daria Strand.
The event’s speakers are Adrienne Elise Tarver (CFA’07), artist; Jenée-Daria Strand, Assistant Curator, Public Art Fund; and Harvey Young, Dean, Boston University College of Fine Arts.
About the Artist
Adrienne Elise Tarver is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY with a practice that spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, textiles, and video. Her work addresses the complexity and invisibility of Black female identity including the history within domestic spaces, the fantasy of the tropical seductress, and the archetype of the all-knowing spiritual matriarch.
She has exhibited nationally and abroad, including solo shows at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut; the Academy Art Museum in Maryland; Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta, Georgia; Dinner Gallery (formerly Victori+Mo) in New York; Ochi Projects in Los Angeles; Wave Hill in the Bronx, NY; BRIC Project Room in Brooklyn; and A-M Gallery in Sydney, Australia and two-person exhibitions at Hollis Taggart in New York; Wedge Curatorial in Toronto, Canada. She recently received the Distinguished Alumni Award from her alma mater, Boston University, and the Nancy Graves Foundation Grant. She has been commissioned for projects through the New York MTA, the Public Art Fund, Google, Art Aspen, and Pulse Art Fair and has been featured in online and print publications including the New York Times, Forbes, Brooklyn Magazine, ArtNews, ArtNet, Blouin ArtInfo, Whitewall Magazine, and Hyperallergic, among others. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and BFA from Boston University.