Damien Cifelli
Location: London
Biography
Damien Cifelli is a multidisciplinary artist from Edinburgh, now based in London.
His work is focused around the idea of fictional anthropology and storytelling, primarily through the fictitious land of Tarogramma.
Referencing the scale and compositions of history paintings and historical sculpture, he builds a detailed culture; with its own aesthetic, way of living, and understanding of the world, that is at once alien and eerily similar to our own.
His work is a visual representation of this alternative society - documentary images of a new world.
Submitted work
Title: Tarogramma
About the work
All my work explores a fictitious land named Tarogramma. It is a place distilled down into the simplest necessities: human connection and a sense of community - values that have become infinitely more important in recent times.
‘Preparations for the Bliss Field’ - The Bliss Field is a vast, featureless area on the edge of Tarogramma, near the base of Taro Mountain. It is a liminal zone where traditional laws of physics do not apply. The Bliss Field has become popular with younger citizens who visit to experience intense hallucinations.
‘Too Much Love’ - The cake is decorated with iconography that shows the tribal groups to which her family belongs.
It has been observed that children born in Tarogramma are treated with a high level of reverence. This could point to a distinction between those who arrive in Tarogramma, and the natives who are born there.
“Working alone, it can sometimes be hard to know if you are heading in the right direction with your work. The UK New Artist of the Year is a really important form of recognition. It almost functions as permission to continue with the work I’m doing. It’s great to see people connect with the art, and the award would be a great help in building a career as an artist - something that seems like a ridiculous luxury, but the only thing I ever wanted to do.”
