Tamara Staples (born Baltimore, MD; lives Brooklyn, NY) is a multimedia artist. She has exhibited at The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO; Foley Gallery, New York, NY; Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR and Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA. Staples is twice the recipient of grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, was awarded Bronze from the Royal Photographic Society in 2014 and is a fellow of The Rauschenberg Residency. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, National Geographic, The New York Times, New York Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Her work has been featured on NPR’s This American Life and CNN. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Fidelity Investments and in private collections around the world.
Statement from the Artist:
“Luxury” is a body of work depicting packaging of luxury items and electronic devices. These beautifully designed pressed pieces exist exclusively to support a luxury item and then are discarded into our environment for life. Most likely, these byproducts will outlive the items they protected. In designing the look of this project, I avoided any organic references. I chose a palate of bright human-made colors moving as far from anything of nature as possible.