Artist's Biography

Kara Tanaka is an artist based in Los Angeles. Her graduate studies were split between Goldsmiths College, University of London, and the California Institute of the Arts, where she completed her MFA in 2008. Recent solo shows include A Sad Bit of Fruit, Pickled in the Vinegar of Grief at the Collezione Maramotti, Italy; Hungry Human, Mountain Hunter at Simon Preston Gallery, New York; Bent-Light Night at Las Cinegas Projects; Dissolver at LAXART, Los Angeles; and a collaborative exhibition with Marco Rios, Death’s Boutique, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Her work was featured in the 2008 California Biennial. Kara Tanaka is represented by Simon Preston Gallery, New York.Kara Tanaka is an artist based in Los Angeles. Her graduate studies were split between Goldsmiths College, University of London, and the California Institute of the Arts, where she completed her MFA in 2008. Recent solo shows include A Sad Bit of Fruit, Pickled in the Vinegar of Grief at the Collezione Maramotti, Italy; Hungry Human, Mountain Hunter at Simon Preston Gallery, New York; Bent-Light Night at Las Cinegas Projects; Dissolver at LAXART, Los Angeles; and a collaborative exhibition with Marco Rios, Death’s Boutique, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Her work was featured in the 2008 California Biennial. Kara Tanaka is represented by Simon Preston Gallery, New York.

Curator's Biography

Ciara Ennis is the director/curator of Pitzer Art Galleries at Pitzer College and was formerly the curator of exhibitions at the University of California Riverside/California Museum of Photography. Ennis moved from London to Los Angeles where she was project director for Public Offerings, an international survey of contemporary art, at MOCA, Los Angeles in 2001. From there she became associate curator at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, where she initiated the Project Room and programmed a series of experimental exhibitions. Ennis has been director of Pitzer Art Galleries for the past four years, during which time she has curated a number of exhibitions. Ennis’ curatorial practice merges fact with fiction and focuses on storytelling as a means to explore the fluidity and fragility of identity, revealing the subtleties of the social, political, and the cultural issues that impact our lives. She received her MA in curating contemporary art from the Royal College of Art, London.