Tara Jerome-Bernabé

Tara Jerome-Bernabé is a multidisciplinary artist. Their work incorporates compositions, experimental sonics and poetry into performance art pieces. An eminent part of their compositions and soundscapes features instruments that they make such as Bass ocarinas, Balafon and Bronze cast shell Xylophone. Their performances feature costumes which are fashioned out of leaves, seeds, pods, sticks, reeds and other workable organic matter. From their paintings, Bernabé experiments with homemade pigment from coffee to mud and works with various scents to breathe life into the 2D work.

Artists Vision

Tara places an emphasis on discovering self-autonomy within the laws of the natural world, believing that much of our ancestral knowledge is inherent and can be tapped into from within. Their works are made to enchant the audience back into this discovery through the mesmerising sounds of their ocarinas, dances, smells, textures and narratives.

In response to ‘Unforgotten Lives’ Tara reimagined the lives and images of those who were adopted into aristocratic families as ‘houseboys’. Tara reflected upon the intense loneliness that was likely felt by people of colour within the aristocracy and the humiliation that these paintings grant.

“My work is about revealing what has been lost through history by reviving stories in a folkloric style, often performing in costumes or weaving canvases as a way to piece together my own history: the lost pieces of puzzles that were omitted before slavery to create new narratives and archives of the present.”

Tara Jerome in Conversation

In their own words, read about what drew Tara to the Art at the Archive project and more about the work that they created.