Tami Izko

Tami Izko was born in Cochabamba (Bolivia) in 1984. Although she’s still young, she lived in different cities for long periods of time, recently in Madrid, Lisbon, London, Milan, Schöppingen and Brussels. She currently lives and works in Athens. During her first Film and Creative Writing studies she mainly explored the autobiographic dimension, a theme that is constantly present in her works. Izko started to focus on sculpture, especially ceramic, when she lived in Lisbon. As it happens with her texts, her ceramic works are often a self-representation. The clay’s plasticity is suitable to create organic forms as a reflection and abstraction of the Self and of the elements it is made up of. In her series Wounds (2019), she explores the connections between memory, trauma and resilience, whereas in her project Bezoar (2022) she focuses on the mechanisms behind magical thinking: sculptures are mainly made of glazed ceramics and crystals that are fired several times in order to accelerate the materials’ mutations. The use of plaster casts to create porcelain, gres, latex or wax forms has become a central element in her approach to sculpture. In her latest production especially (Via Spaventa, 2021, The Crab’s House with Federico Clavarino, 2022-ongoing, and her last work Inventory for Fondazione La Raia) she uses this process to remould pre-existing places, creating a constellation of objects extracted from their context, reinterpreting them to create a new personal space. Her works were shown in Geneva (Fondation Bruckner Parcours Céramique), London (Royal College of Art), Schöppingen (Stiftung Künstlerdorf), Brussels (Boghossian Foundation), Istanbul (Biennal 2017), Milan (Viasaterna Arte Contemporanea) and Turin (Artissima). During her research activity she often worked with photographer Federico Clavarino; their collaboration produced, among other works, the series Eel Soup – recently issued by Witty Books – that was shown in Brussels (Pinguin, 2018), in Lodz, Poland (Fotofestiwal, 2018), at the Istanbul Biennal (2019) and in Milan at Viasaterna Gallery (2019).