Tamara Bond – Drawings, Paintings & Books

Tamara Bond graduated from Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design with a degree in Visual Arts in 2001. Her contemporary figurative drawings and books have been shown across Canada.  She has received a Canada Council Grant, a Saskatchewan Arts Board Grant and is a collective member of Jackpine Press.

Her drawing process involves creating imaginary characters and narratives, which are often based on real events and experiences.  Using collage, mixed media, and rubber stamps as a rudimentary printmaking method, Bond experiments with the limits of drawing, painting and imagination in an effort to create harmony between reality and fantasy.

Tamara Bond’s artwork can be found in the book Abracadabra

Bond’s next solo exhibition will be in the upper gallery of the Vancouver Bau-Xi Gallery, September, 2009.

Artist Statement
I am attracted to illusion, particularly that which resonates a bit of familiarity from
our physical world, but is not of this place. I am interested in telling stories
through my work about my home, my history and my changing place in the world.
The character I have been using is transformed slightly every time, yet her face
remains the same. Out of a need for efficiency and playfulness in my process, I
created a stamp to work on this drawing. The image of the stamp is of a face,
drawn from a doll, which was made from my likeness. She has appeared in my
work for a couple of years now as the main character in many drawings, a series
of flash animations and has starred as the lead in many puppet shows. It is
through this character that I negotiate many ideas and new landscapes. Her body
changes shape to negotiate the situation I have drawn her into- as a creature, a
winged woman, or swimming through water. It is necessary for me to find play in
making work, and it is often through the process of printmaking that this happens.
I am delighted by the reproduction, pattern, similarity, efficiency and familiarity of
this process.