JOAN TANNER

End of Water #3, 2020

Oil stick, oil pastel, chalk, Conté crayon on Strathmore paper

Unframed: 50 x 44 inches (127 x 11.8 cm)

Framed: 53 ¾ x 47 ⅝ x 2 ½ inches (126.5 x 121 x 6.3 cm)

Courtesy of the Artist

Photo credit: Patrick Lorenz

Selected by John Yau 

During a prolific, five-decade-long career, Joan Tanner (b. 1935) has pursued a rigorous and sustained investigation into spatial relationships, combined with ideas of instability, contradiction, and disruption. Though her work has expanded to include painting, photography, video, sculpture, and assemblage, Tanner continues to ground her practice in drawing, using the medium as an exploratory vehicle for grasping and clarifying ideas of impermanence and inconsistency, and for revisiting her fascination with organic and scientific forms.

Joan Tanner received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and moved to Southern  California in the mid-1960s. Her work has been shown consistently since 1968, including in solo exhibitions at The Santa Barbara Museum of Art; CAC Cincinnati, OH; The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; and Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College, Los Angeles, CA. Tanner’s work is included in many private and public collections, including The Albertina, Vienna; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Stanford University, Stanford, CA; PAFA, Philadelphia, PA; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and The Speed Art Museum.