Sinta Tantra
b, 1979, New York
Sinta Tantra’s bold interventions use colour abstractions that wrap themselves around architectural environments, transforming them in the process. The works are a hybridity of pop and formalism, a bricolage of colour and rhythm, an exploration of identity and aesthetics. Tantra challenges our understanding of geography whilst playing on notions of globalization / localization and deconstructing the modern obsession with brand. Themes within the work include the slippage between pictorial and physical space, of turning something ‘inside out’ and how we as bodies become submerged in surface and structure.
“I describe the work as ‘painting on an architectural scale’. I create works that celebrate the spectacle, questioning the decorative, functional and social role of art. The compositional arrangements are rooted in formalism. I am intrigued when this formalism becomes ‘relational’ – when private becomes public and when the viewer becomes active. My work is an ‘overlay’ which inserts its identity within the pre-existing – heightening a sense of fantasy within the functional.
Colour exists as an integral aspect to my work and I am drawn to colour as a material which lies in-between the language of art and industry. Colour exists within its own structure – it is densely packed, hermetically sealed, contained. My work takes on a sculptural approach to ‘colour-collage’ where colour is ‘cut’ as opposed to filled, ‘layered’ as opposed to mixed, ‘constructed’ as opposed to emerged. Geometric boundaries are definitive and illusionary highs ‘snap’ into place as you walk around the work.”
A British artist of Balinese descent, Sinta Tantra was born in New York in 1979. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London 1999–2003 and at the Royal Academy Schools London 2004–2006. Highly regarded for her site-specific murals and installations in the public realm, commissions include Lee Tung Avenue, Hong Kong (2018) and Facebook London (2018). Tantra’s most notable public work includes a 300-metre long painted bridge commissioned for the 2012 Olympics, Canary Wharf, London. A recipient of many awards including the Bridget Riley Drawing Fellow at The British School at Rome (2017); British Council’s International Development Award (2014); and Deutsche Bank Award (2006), Tantra’s work has been featured in both UK and international press including The Evening Standard, Tate Shots, FAD Magazine, The Jakarta Post and BBC Radio Indonesia.
Sinta Tantra is represented by ISA Art Advisory. Puerta Roja is honoured to present her work in the collaborative exhibition Reflections (2018).
