Adrienne Tabet, is a visual artist from Miami, FL. Whether they’re sculpting these exceptional forms, applying prosthetics, or creating through photography; Adrienne continues to keep me in awe. Could it be how elegantly they recreate birth and death or is it how honest the work is. We love their work and aesthetic so we had to get into their brain and ask them some more about their process.
See more of Adrienne Tabet’s work here: WEBSITE / INSTAGRAM
You were raised in Miami, FL currently where are you located?
-Somewhere around New Orleans, Tucson, Tennessee, and Miami.
What’s your background, and does it play a role in your artwork?
-I’m mixed race Lebanese American raised alongside black and brown immigrants and fist gen. Americans. It definitely plays a role in my work. All through out my life I was brought back and forth from Lebanon to America so my observation and analysis of the differences and inequalities was very prominent and does influence my work and emphasis on the tension of skin and bridging certain gaps etc.
Going through your website its awesome to see you exploring these different mediums and executing them so well. How long have you been working on sculptures & SFX makeup for?
-Thank you! I’ve actually been sculpting the human body since 8 years old. My mama and I quickly learned that a ball of clay could momentarily sooth my hyperactivity. SFX makeup started a few years ago after I spent a year and a half carving a mutated human body and going broke.. I realized why not cut out the time of sculpting entirely new bodies and sculpt ON TOP of bodies. So I jumped right into music video makeup, performance SFX makeup, and then film.
Has there been a response to your artwork that you’ll never forget?
-Oh yes! Because my sculpture deals with death and birth, aspects of life labeled grotesque, a museum once put up a WARNING sign for children and the squeamish, and made such a deal about it. When the time came for the show, it was all adults that felt uneasy, while children would crowd around it, embracing it and saw such beauty as I saw.
Do you have any routines, behavioral patterns that you do before or while creating?
-Most of my ideas come after having a dramatic epiphany. I live and move in a very dramatic way. Working off that idea I kind of kick in to some subconscious/meditative state and then hours later sit back in exhaustion and realize something I created. I’ll snap back into reality long enough to acquire material and tools but my method for creating is typically intuitive. I see my creativity as my most genuine side.
What has influenced your work; whether it be a movie, a memory, or just lots of reading and drugs?
-My work is a constant analysis of who I am and the environment I am bouncing off. Most the time I create an image I have not yet analyzed, then analyze it after, when it is physically in front of me. It is how I communicate my frequency to myself and the world. Being queer gendered, Lebanese American and most of the time culturally/energetically different than my peers, the child of a family fighting religious warfare in the Middle East, and a nature worshipping intuitive. This imagery tends to affect my work.
While going through your “Striae” series, I felt as if these images had deity characteristics. Can you tell me a little bit about this project in particular?
–It was my ode to the beauty and complexities of gender. (Also my ode to my gorgeous closest friends who are the ones modeling for each of the photos)
Is there any project in particular that you are incredibly attached to?
–All of them and none of them. They are all little dialogues part of the same massive dialogue. Xiquilla De Mierda holds a lot of power, I put years of pain, loss, and love into it.
If there were any advice you’d give to a young aspiring artist, what would it be?
-Just let yourself flow. Speak your mind. Art can be your release, your activism. Your protest. Art can be your escape. It can be your wake up call to others. It can be your tool, your dialogue. Use it genuinely. Use it passionately. Use it with awareness while you learn and unlearn. Be aware of what’s inspiring you and why. Be aware of oppressive structures an how you can lessen them.
Lastly, What would you say is your spirit animal?
-Not completely sure but I feel a calling to snakes.
Photography courtesy of : Adrienne Tabet || Interviewed by : Yahaira Kalaf
