ABOUT ME
Education:
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Metropolitan State University. Fine Art Minor, 2001
Magazine:
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Alter/Analog - alter-analog.com
Solo Exhibitions:
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2018 - Englewood Public Library, Englewood, CO
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2018 - CHUMP Pop Up Gallery, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
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2017 - Bardo Coffehouse, Denver, CO
Selected Group Exhibitions:
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2023 - SNAPPED - Month of Photography Denver, Spectra Art Space, Denver, CO
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2022 - Tiny Art Big Ideas, Spectra Art Space Denver, CO
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2022 - Colorado Vibes 8, Spectra Art Space, Denver, CO
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2022 - Colorado Vibes 7, Spectra Art Space, Denver, CO
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2021 - SNAPPED - Month of Photogpraphy Denver, Spectra Art Space, Denver, CO
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2020 - Plantopia, Spectra Art Space, Denver, CO
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2019 - Inaugural, SAMple Gallery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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2019 - Colorado Vibes, Spectra Art Space, Denver, CO
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2019 - Spun Sugar, Federal Coffee, Denver, CO
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2019 - Deconstruction, Studio Altieri, Denver, CO
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2019 - Month of Photography Exhibit, MegaFauna, Denver, CO
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2018 - Member’s Show, Depot Art Gallery, Littleton, CO
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2018 - 100 Monkeys, Art Circus, Denver, CO
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2017 - The Brew on Broadway, Englewood, CO
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2017 - Tammy Cromer PHOTO | GALLERY 7th Annual Holga & Friends Out of the Box International Photography Competition Dallas, TX
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2017 - Denver Art Society Group Art Show, City Hall, Jersey City, NJ
Online Exhibitions:
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2019 - Film Without Frontiers “Deliquesce”
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2018 - BeAnalogic “Series: Denver Soaked by Tania Kaaz”
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2018 - Mother F Stop “Tania Kaaz”
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2018 - Underexposed “Rural Decay”
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2017 - PRYME Editions “Happy Accidents” Group Exhibition
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2017 - Lenscratch “The 2017 Photographic Conversations Exhibition”
Publications and Media:
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Film Soup Community Cookbook
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Rat World Magazine Issue 3
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Founder and contributor. ALTER/ANALOG online and print magazine
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“Snow Dog, Lighting Penguin.” revolog film 2018 calendar. November and December 2018
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“Botanical Dreamscapes.” ArtAscent. December 2017
Honors and Awards:
Honorable Mention: Abstract. Chromatic Awards International Color Photography Contest 2018
Member of the Following Organizations:
Month of Photography Denver, Joined 2019
BEHIND THE LENS
Since a very young age, I've been interested in art, enjoying museums and exhibits. When I was 11 years old, I got a rare form of muscular dystrophy, which made me partially paralyzed, forcing me go through the world at a very slow pace. This caused me to see the minute things many people would normally miss and made me mindful of my surroundings. I started chronicling them through art. I soon started taking black and white photographs with 35mm film, mesmerized at the details I could capture that other people missed, things like the texture of masonry or the pattern of rust on a dumpster. After high school, I went into remission, but my appreciation and passion for things unseen by most remained.
I continued shooting black and white photos for two semesters at the University of Colorado. During this time, as digital photography was just starting to become popular, I appreciated analog photography more than ever. With film, one has a limited amount of chances to get the image to look correct. You have to get the shot right or that image is gone forever. You cannot take the photo, check it and retake it. There is a beauty in that. I love the physical permanence of film. The negative is something you can touch. It exists in reality. As my classmates embraced digital photography, I felt more and more alienated.
After college, I entered the corporate world and did not take photographs for a very long time until a film photographer encouraged me to begin taking analog photos again. I started with black and white photography, taking awful photos at first, but it quickly came back to me. I started to process my own black and white film at home.
I still take black and white photos, but I also take color photos that I process at home. I soak my color film, which involves submerging my film in various liquids before I process it. These liquids destroy the film, causing interesting effects. I make surreal, otherworldly images, creating landscapes that are different than what our eyes see.
I'm very interested in manipulating images. I enjoy making photos that create an altered reality and show ordinary objects and scenes in a surreal, almost magical way. I like to see what the eye doesn't normally see, and manipulating the film accomplishes that. The effects of soaking film are random and often unexpected, completely unique and unable to be duplicated. Creating beauty out of destruction is an interesting concept and soaking the film too long can cause it to be destroyed beyond recognition, so there is an excitement that always happens when I soak my film and process it and see beautiful negatives emerge from the chemicals with the emulsion intact and not eaten away.
I hope my images can produce the sense of childlike wonder in the viewer that they produce in me when I create them.
2019©Tania Kaaz