Tatana Kellner

Tatana Kellner is the founding member and Artistic Director of Women’s Studio Workshop, an artists’ workspace in Rosendale, NY where she is instrumental in helping artists publish and market limited edition artists’ books. Her work encompasses printmaking, photography and installation and she is the author of 15 limited edition artists’ books.

Tatana has participated is the recipient of numerous grants, including two NYFA Fellowships, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Puffin Foundation Grant, Ruth Chenven Foundation Grant and Center for Photography at Woodstock Fellowship. She has been awarded residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Banff Centre for the Arts, Light work, Visual Studies Workshop, Saltonstall Art Colony, Millay Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Artpark, Blue Mountain Center, Jentel  Foundation, Ragdale Foundation, Hessisches LandesMuseum in Darmstadt, Germany and Foundacion Valparaiso.

About my work:

My work is rooted in social issues. Growing up in communist Czechoslovakia as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, I was told to toe the line in school while at home do not trust “them” was the dictum. This conflicting advice provided a schizophrenic lens with which I see the world.

I create installations and artist’s books that explore politics, economy, environment and social justice issues.  I’m interested in finding the proper visual language to address these weighty topics. Using satire, whimsy and at times an element of surprise, I try to bring the viewer into the conversation.  My work is rooted in printmaking, I like the graphic nature of the medium as well as it’s historical role as the medium for the masses.