Bio
Tatum Elizabeth is a southwest artist creating work that celebrates and explores the curious and complex relationship to the human body. Born and raised in Arizona, Tatum wandered the west coast and southwest before setting roots in Denver, Colorado.
Tatum began collaging from pornographic magazines in 2015, and participated in her first exhibition of analog collages in 2016. That same year Tatum used Youtube tutorials to learn Photoshop and move to digital collage.
Tatum has used pornographic and nude imagery to cut, rearrange, and recreate. This process is a cathartic exercise of agency over sexually triggering imagery.
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Since the origins of collaging with explicit images as a form of trauma healing, the impulse behind the body-centered work has shifted and matured. It is now a broader exploration of the body's evolution through age, growth, trauma, pleasure, and (dis)ability. It is a conversation and acknowledgement of the constants and the changes.
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Origins
The collage process began as an exercise of trauma healing, where Tatum took
triggering sexualized imagery and transformed them into celebrations of the body.
"My collages bring light to the heaviness of trauma. I was experiencing flashbacks, dissociation and was sometimes triggered by sexualized imagery. The local gas station sold pornographic magazines so I bought them. I brought them home, I cut them up, rearranged, and made them into something new. I made them sometimes funny, sometimes pretty, but I made them safe. I exercised control over them, but it was control within the parameters of what was in front of me.
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Collage is an exercise of agency, reminding me that while I cannot change the past, I can choose how I create my future."
Eventually this process raised questions about the ethics of the source material itself. At a certain point Tatum questioned what it meant to collage as a form of healing sexual trauma using images from an industry polluted with sexual abuse itself. This was a catalyst for exploring sexual abuse and trafficking, body politics of homogenous representation, and racism within the porn industry. This research into exploitative vs ethical porn contributed to a shift in how Tatum gathers source material today.