FAR Gallery is pleased to present Tina La Porta ‘Side Effects’ opening September 29 from 6-10pm. Tina La Porta exhibits a range of works that explores and expresses struggles with mental
illness. This cathartic, introspective body of work reflects her own personal struggles. Consuming pills have become a part of our daily routines and they have become a central focus for many of the works with the intent of opening a dialogue with our larger community.
Opening Reception during Artwalk
September 29 6-10pm
Closing Reception during Artwalk
October 27 6-10pm
La Porta uses over the counter pills and coats them with resin, crushes them, places them into the palms of plaster casts of her own hand, photographs them and makes screen prints based on digitally altered images of them. “Pills are art supplies for me. I’m aesthetically attracted to them, and yet I’m also repulsed by them. At the local pharmacy I came across these huge, beautiful ruby-red diet pills that I have used for instance; and I found pink capsules called “Sudden Sleep”– sleeping pills that are marketed towards women” La Porta says. In addition to her pill-based works, screen-print collages that are printed onto wallpaper samples are also on view. La Porta’s use of wallpaper alludes to the short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In this essay, the main character suffers a nervous breakdown and experiences psychosis as La Porta did in the early onset of her Illness.
Side Effects will be on view at the FAR Gallery, 521 NE 1st Ave., Fort Lauderdale, FL. 33301 from September 29 – November 16.
For more information or press images contact artist at avatar@tinalaporta.net or http://www.tinalaporta.net/
About the artist:
Born in 1967 in Chicago, Ms. La Porta moved to New York’s East Village in 1992 to pursue her Master of Fine Arts Degree at The School of Visual Arts. Since 1991 Ms. La Porta has exhibited work
in numerous group shows and two one person exhibitions in New York. In South Florida she has shown her work at The NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale; Bailey Contemporary Art, Pompano
Beach; The Cornell Museum of Art, Delray Beach; The Art and Culture Center, Hollywood and The Young At Art Museum, Davie. Other National and International venues she has exhibited include, The New Museum, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Art Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; École Supérieure Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris, France; Museu do Essencial e do Alem Disso, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England; San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA; Centre Cultural de la Fundació “la Caixa,” Barcelona, Spain; The Kitchen, New York, NY.