Jessica Tampas has had a camera in her hand from the time she was 14 years old, and she reckons that she spent a full two years in the darkroom of Emma Wilard School in Troy, NY before she was 18.  Later, Tampas attended the Mills College where she worked closely with Catherine Wagner, learning about the elegiac and poetic potential of the medium; she went on to study with Nicholas Nixon, Abelardo Morell, and Shelby Lee Adams at the Massachusetts College of Art where she recieved her MFA.

Tampas’ Unbroken series of large-scale color prints, is a typological study of century-old toy dolls – tiny beings who still manage to smile for the camera though their bodies have been worn away by overuse.  Studying their cracked forms, we learn to find compassion for what is broken within us-for our utterly human imperfections that may forever go unfixed.

To see more work by Jessica Tampas and to read her artist statement click here.

We are looking forward to exhibiting Jessica’s work this summer as part of  CEG’s, The Chicago Project V: Selections from our Online Gallery, July 12 – August 31, 2013.

If you are interest in finding out about more artists in The Chicago Project click here. If you would like information on how to submit to the project click here.