Seizing Beauty

In her sumptuous photographic still lifes replete with flora, food, and artifacts, Paulette Tavormina creates intensely personal interpretations of timeless tableaux. With a painterly perspective reminiscent of Old Masters such as Francisco de Zurbarán, Adriaen Coorte, and Giovanna Garzoni, Tavormina’s meticulously orchestrated and lit photographs are boldly contemporary in their precision.

Paulette Tavormina: Seizing Beauty presents the full array of her seductive and opulent still life series, heirs to the legacy of a cherished art tradition now seen through the lens of photography. Essays by art and photography scholars Silvia Malaguzzi, Mark Alice Durant, and Anke Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven delve into the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources of Tavormina’s inspiration, her stance in art photography, and how the conventions of yesterday’s painting can transform to make visually stunning photographic art for today.