TABITHA SOREN

Artist in Residence

Tabitha Soren explores the expansive power of photography by pushing its material limits and embracing its unreliable nature. She probes the surface of the photograph to unlock the rich history of the medium and experiments with sculptural and painterly interventions to further complicate the inherent uncertainty of the source. This layered approach underscores not only the bounds of the viewer’s perception but also makes visible the psychological states of Soren’s subject matter, creating a tension between what is seen and what lies underneath.

At Local Language, Soren explored the material opportunities and challenges of printing on unique surfaces, from metal mesh to bedsheets. The expectation of photography to capture a specific moment in time is blurred in both the Structuring Absence and Motherload series. Interfering with the way viewers absorb her work via layered mesh and visible stretcher bars, Structuring Absence requires a viewer to slow down and contemplate a quiet, intimate moment. Motherload intentionally mars the visual field with an accumulated experience (thousands of layered images captured over time), which questions what in our lives impairs our ability to really see.

A visual artist in different domains for over twenty-five years, Soren has long explored the intersection of psychology, culture, politics, and the body. Her mediated images examine the vulnerabilities we all carry and provide the outline for a narrative still endlessly unfolding. Whether capturing solitary individuals running through empty streets, harnessing the sublime power of the natural world, or obscuring violent scenes with a dense application of ink and resin, Soren calls forth the underlying and pervasive energy that propels a twist of fate, upends a story, and challenges a belief. She never lets the viewer forget that there is something looming just outside of the frame- maybe a threat, a dashed hope, an unfair assumption, or an impending change in fortune- that deserves respect and consideration.  

Though a palpable sense of pathos connects all her images, Soren begins each new series using the methodical investigative tools she used during her time in journalism. Books, research studies, and statistics lay a necessary analytical foundation for the visual ideas she communicates. These data points then merge with her experiences growing up in a military family, spending her youth moving around the world and adjusting to the cultural differences, social structures, and visual cues that came with each relocation. This constant navigation of environments hinged on threat and survival led to a true understanding of what it means to always live on high alert, giving Soren a level of empathy for internal struggle and a sincere desire to show the myriad ways we reveal ourselves as we move through the world.

Soren was born in 1967 in San Antonio, Texas.  She received her degree in 1989 from New York University and was awarded a fellowship from Stanford University in 1997. Soren’s work is in numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, The High Museum, Oakland Museum of California, The New Orleans Museum of Art, Harvard Art Museums, and The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. She currently lives and works in Berkeley, California.