San Francisco Voice

* “Tantra Glows To Spite Death” – image from the Art Beacon web page (see links below)

 Local creative spirit Tantra Bensko is more than just an artist. She is a Tantra teacher and healer, an art director, a writer and more. Her art will be part of an erotic art show which in turn is part of a book release party happening at ArtSF this Saturday, June 16 from 8 p.m. to midnight. Learn more about her and her work from this interview that she did with SFV.

What can you tell us about the basics of your artwork?

In summary: Passion, vulnerability, intensity, the surreal, dreamlike nature of my vision of the world. The absurd. Multilayers and multidimensions.

In brief: Some of my art is conceptual, moving towards understandings that can’t be paraphrased. Physics… synapses… parallels…. arising out of the non manifest in the moment…..

Some of the art is addressing the state of the world around us in political ways, questioning, calling to action, revealing. Some explore the power of sensuality, some the spirit, some most are subtle and enigmatic like poetry.

Most of my pieces are avant garde, many encouraged somewhat by experimental film directors like Paradjanov, Jodorowsky, Guy Madden., Maya Deren, The Brothers Quay, and Jan Svankmajer.

In detail:  While I’ve done many forms of printmaking and painting, I most often begin with photography and use Photoshop, sometimes just leaving it at that. Other times, I may combine it with painting or a scan. I may then take the work and scratch, burn, scrape, or paint on it, and make a Polaroid transfer or put it into a movie or a sculpture. Most of my art, however takes the form of giclees. Many times it is online, in magazines, or lurking in waiting, wafting elusively in the ethers. I publish my work more than I show it in galleries, but have done both extensively.

My themes are just as varied. I’m inspired by the moving beauty and quirkiness around me and take eccentric photos of it. While some of my work is nature related, it is as likely to be pictures of dead animals as live ones. Someone referred to them as morbid today, and I suppose that’s technically a definition of the word, but to me, dead animals are not that different from live, all part of the life process, all beautiful. I like to commemorate them with little art funerals. Scratch the image like a nest.

What projects are you working on now?

I do a lot of work in series and end up with many, many images that go together, so books are my new direction. I am putting together a book of one set called Metaportals. I already have a calendar out of those with Lulu Press. They are meditative pieces that take people beyond the rational mind that wants to hold onto things and explain them. I create portals to gaze through and see the enigmatic divinity looking back, mirroring us.

What art goals do you have for yourself?

I want it all. I want my art to transform as many people as it can, bless people’s lives, inspire them, make them more alive, and lucid. Make them laugh, feel more deeply, recognize something in themselves, be politically motivated, and go to places in their minds they have never been before, which are delicious to them, vivid dreams that take them to their core down new pathways.

Current / upcoming shows?

I am about to have some art in Santa Barbara, and also most likely on TV, with the Bridging Heaven and Earth show. This is a beautiful example of quantum activism, as I call it, combined consciousness helping to energetically bring about evolution of consciousness. Artists from all over the world are meditating on that theme and putting it into their artwork.

I am also about to have some art in New York at a show benefiting Mad Hatters Review, a multimedia online magazine which I am the Art Director of.

Currently, I have a solo show traveling in Spain, called Reality Burn!

And there’s the work in the erotic art show (see above).

Do you have a favorite gallery in San Francisco?

Rather than galleries, I most often prefer to see living at art events such as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s events, Cyclecide blow outs, Ambioticas, How Weird Street Faire, Grace Cathedral ArtsFest events, Burning Man pre and de compressions. My most frequented galleries unfortunately closed down, like Amaru, and Canvas Galleries. Amaru was wonderful, with Javier Rocabado‘s painting, Our Lady of the Remedies, with the bald headed person with the transparent cloth as clothing covering the body, including breasts and penis. The HIV vials were spread all the way around the edges of the huge icon, the one work of art that probably kept me returning in fascination more than any other.

How does the city inspire or affect your art work?

I take a camera with me on my walks, and find the scenes to be endlessly fascinating. They may not end up looking anything like the original shot by the time I’m done, using Photoshop, as a doorway may end up being a meta portal into another state of consciousness.

I’m also inspired by the playfulness, the costumery, the liveliness, the way there are always little vignettes of strange and darling behavior. Being here is a very rewarding visual experience for me, which lets me safely open up my visual needs and get involved in my art.

Where can you be found when you’re just out and about in the city? 

I am usually out walking if I’m out and about. I live by the beach, as close as you can get to the sand dunes, so I wander over them, and I like the ruins of the pleasure dome at the Sutro Baths. Otherwise, I’m walking along Irving Street, often all through Haight, on my walks that often end up being 7 or 8 miles altogether. I made a short movie called Irving Reveal, about that area. It was all done with stills which I painted on, scratched, scraped, burned, scoured, and set to music. None of the pictures had people, was all scenic, usually close ups, of that fascinating area. I love the way the moist air erodes the layers of paint and the enigmatic quality of the graffiti that is hard at times to tell apart from the calligraphy in the Asian areas.

The whole Sunset District is pretty wholesome, and I particularly like going to the restaurants and stores that deal in organic, vegan, raw and live foods. The people put so much love and appreciation for the spirit into the preparation.

Some evenings, I may go to the Anon Salon, or other absurdist, meta creative multimedia, self reflexive, experimental art type events, or healthy, spiritual events like Gratitude Nights.

What do you think the average visitor to San Francisco should know about the art scene here?

The multimedia extravaganzas here are often very alternative, and always fun and experimental. I feel that is a unique part of San Francisco, what really makes it stand out from other places. So many people say they are bored by going to traditional galleries, want to go out and have fun, be immersed in art of all kinds, including their own costumes and inspired behaviors, be hugged by others in costumes, participate in the themes, engage their creativity and improvisation. They want all the senses to be working together, to play, to flirt, to have a memorable experience different from just going to a gallery. There is always something wonderful going on in the city artistically, and sometimes they are in urban areas that have been claimed for the night, usually by people who are out of the mainstream society, with a lot of life, a most important to San Francisco culture, a lot of self reflective humor. They may happen in back lots, on the beach, at junk yards, even garbage dumps.

What advice do you have for emerging artists?

Feel as deeply as you can.

You can learn more about this multi-media artist:

A few of my art for giclees is at http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com, and I also have art at www.artbeacon.com/tantravision

I am a writer too, so you may see www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko.

I am also a Tantra teacher and healer, www.freewebs.com/lucidbody

And I am the Art Director for www.madhattersreview.com.

I can be conctacted via email at flameflower@runbox.com.

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