ARt w/ Leah Tacha

There are a lot of really interesting MFA candidates this year at Purchase's conservatory of art but one of the one's that stood out to me is Leah Tacha. So, since I am an Arts Management major at Purchase, I really wanted to try and help her out while gaining some experience in managing the arts. What draws me to her work is her fantastic use of color. I think even if your are not into contemporary art, you can get hooked on her use of bright, bold colors. She uses a lot of found materials like plastic bags and foam ad bends them into interesting shapes in her sculptures. She also does a lot of 2-d work which also uses lot of color and has many textural elements. Plus she uses glitter and doesn't like a little sparkle? A lot of her stuff is fun, a little quirky and humorous. There is this one piece that is on her site called "Chicken Legs" that I couldn't help but grin when I saw it. Artist's site: http://www.leah-tacha.com

She has two major shows in April, one here at Purchase on the 16th and one at the Smith-Stewart Gallery in uptown Manhattan on the 17th. She is a Cleveland Institute of Art grad and has received the Martha M. Spindler award for excellence in Painting in 2007, the President's Award for excellence in the Arts from Purchase in 2009 and is up for the 2009 Thayer and Ross Fellowship for Outstanding Achievement and High Professional Achievement in the Arts. There has been a number of different places she has shown including the Westchester Arts Council in White Plains, the Salamanca Arts Center in Tasmania, Australia and the Reinberger Gallery in Cleveland.