Tina La Porta 'Side Effects' Closing Reception Saturday October 27 6-10pm

About

Tina La Porta will exhibit a wide range of works that explore and express her struggles with her own diagnosis with mental illness. This body of work is both cathartic and reflective for the artist.  Since consuming pills have become a part of her daily routine they have become a central focus for many of the works on view.

La Porta uses over the counter pills and coats them with resin, crushes them, places them into the palms of plaster casts of her own hand, photographs them and makes screen prints based on digitally altered images of them.

“Pills are art supplies for me. I’m aesthetically attracted to them, and yet I'm also repulsed by them. At the local pharmacy I came across these huge, beautiful ruby-red diet pills that I have used for instance; and I found pink capsules called "Sudden Sleep"-- sleeping pills that are marketed towards women" La Porta says.

In addition to her pill-based works, screen-print collages that are printed onto wallpaper samples are also on view. La Porta’s use of wallpaper alludes to the short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In this essay, the main character suffers a nervous breakdown and experiences psychosis as La Porta did in the early onset of her Illness.

“Wallpaper covers walls just as pills cover the symptoms experienced while in treatment.” La Porta states.