Bundanon

Tai Snaith works across many mediums from hand-built ceramic forms, to photographic assemblage, drawing and spoken conversations.

Living on Wurundjeri land, her studio sits on the banks of the Merri Creek. Tai’s work often marries the act of making with the telling of stories. Connecting and creating meaning through verbal exchange and dialogue. Creating visual symbols from spoken ideas. Tai has exhibited widely in both artist run and commercial spaces since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002. She has been awarded the Australia Council for the Arts Tokyo studio residency and numerous state and federal project grants. Tai’s recent commissioned work for the State Library of Victoria was shortlisted in the World Illustration Awards in 2019. Tai has work in the NGA works on paper collection, Artbank, Banyule City art collection and numerous private collections. 

In Residence at Bundanon

During her residency at Bundanon, Snaith will undertake preparations including research, conversations and drawings for her upcoming solo show of paintings at Nicholas Thompson gallery in 2024. Her days will be spent investigating the local mascot – the iconic, endangered Stuttering Frog (found on the Bundanon property) and connecting the subject of frogs to a long history of feminist mythologies.

Tai will then spend her evenings conducting a series of online conversations with other female Australian painters and partake in a joint exploration into the notion of female subjectivity, connections between feminism and connection to country, courage and mythology around motherhood. The action of stuttering often represents a kind of anxiety or fear of speaking truths under pressure, but can also indicate trauma or emotional distress in the instance of being pressured to speak out loud. Using the Stuttering Frog as a symbolic starting point of their connection and courage to speak, these artists will explore the notion of women being challenged by the both their domestic environments, their innate urge to be fierce mothers and the desire to be wild or free.