Morning Comes Again is an installation of new ceramic sculpture (including functioning lamps) made during the pandemic era in Tacha’s Queens studio. Guiding this new work is an attention to the existential conundrum of the search for joy in a time of tremendous stress. As the structures and routines of life erode and dissolve, either because of pandemic or politics, one must reconcile a desire for joy and love and comfort with the pain of living in an unjust society.  If every day is made up of small and large efforts, what exactly are we trying for? What should we be trying for? 

 

Leah’s unique practice smashes together print based media with hand built freestanding sculpture through the production and firing of custom decals onto the clay. Her embrace of printmaking and sculpture allows the work to move into unexpected territories of meaning. Textures/materials play a prominent role: images of plants, flowers, marble, fringe, and textile are fired into the stoneware/clay and lampshades.  The inclusion of lamplight seems to refer to the domestic space.

 

Framing craft as both ceremony and a source of comfort, Leah’s objects reflect our tiny human yearnings in the context of the massiveness of our struggles. The pandemic and motherhood have brought an urgency to Leah’s curiosities.

 

Leah Tacha (b. 1984, Lawrence, KS) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in Painting from The Cleveland Institute of Art in 2007 and her MFA from SUNY Purchase College in 2009. Her first solo exhibition in NY was curated by Jon Lutz at Sardine in Brooklyn, NY in 2014 and she had another solo show at Lutz’s 106 Green Gallery in 2016. She has shown with Morgan Lehman Gallery, SSD (Shrine & Sargent’s Daughters), Daily Operation, Underdonk, RARE Gallery, New Baroque, and the Torrance Art Museum, among many others. In 2015 she was awarded the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop SIP Fellowship. In 2017 she was awarded a Windgate Fellowship from the Archie Bray Foundation.

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A digital presentation is available here. 

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