Tara Sellios

Tara Sellios - Messes No. 1 (Wine Harvest Sickle)

Boston-based contemporary artist Tara Sellios’s latest photographic work takes the form of a wine harvesting sickle infested with if not wholly composed of leaf mimic insects. Sellios, whose work was recently acquired by the MFA Boston, is an interdisciplinary artist who works in photography, drawing, and installation. Her practice explores the totality of mortal existence. Sellios’s personal visual language draws on established traditions of nature mort / still life and employs structures or symbolism we find in such things as altarpieces, stained glass windows, or illuminated manuscripts. Every aspect, gesture, and detail are considered and thus charged. Together a larger story is orchestrated from embedded visual clues.

Like all of Tara Sellios’ work, this photograph has a palpable carnality. Here, creation seems fueled by consumption. The sickle is a dually loaded object that may symbolizes prosperity and abundance as well as harvest and death. It is also hard to dislodge economic and proletariat connections with the symbol. A sickle of camouflaging insects may caution us to be wary of appearances, they may mask or falsify truth. Sellios has engaged the symbolism of wine before, generally alluding to grotesque, even morbid overindulgence. This sickle seems like much of her recent work to be a warning. The inspiration for this photograph was a Biblical grape harvest story in the Book of Revelation. Set in the Apocalypse, God calls on angels to harvest the ripe grapes. Angels come down with sickles to harvest. When the grapes are crushed in “the wine press of the wrath of God” blood not wine flows so high it rises to the level of horse’s bridles.

Tara Sellios

Messes No. 1 (Wine Harvest Sickle), 2020

Image Price Structure:
20 x 16 in. pigment print | Edition of 5 | $1,800
40 x 30 in. pigment print | Edition of 3 | $4,200