bio

From the daily grind as an in house web and print designer to an early career as a young entrepreneur of the stationery brand, INK&WIT, and now the founder and artist behind TULSI, Tara Hogan has been steadily climbing a creative journey full of intuitive drive and spontaneous trust in what she feels to be an honest moment in time. Tulsi is an art and textile studio reflective of nature and the space we feel at home with inside and outside. That space we want to return to day to day and be authentic and peaceful. We create designs that are timeless and that have a soft intensity where shapes wave and run and grace abounds. Tara’s work is inspired by Vedic philosophy, Native American art, Nepalese vintage textiles, the Bauhaus, aerial topography, and forms in nature. The Tulsi line represents the spontaneity of nature and the reciprocal beauty we innately feel to it.

After a long evolution as a designer and illustrator for children’s products from posters to stamps to notecards, her conquest swung towards textiles and circled back to photography, abstract art collages and paintings. Every corner turned on this adventure was a new story but the common thread that remained was her love for nature and raw organic textural forms. Her current trajectory as an artist has always been the goal and it has taken near twenty years to come full circle. What was once brewing as a young college girl in the 1990’s grunge laden studios of Syracuse University painting cathartic moments of a stalwart childhood pivoted to an auspicious path photographing landscapes and tearing paper creating delicate fragile collages. At present, Tara travels regularly to Iceland to photograph the landscape and draw from the vortex of vast open spaces of black sand and mountains bathed in white. The Iceland photo series was a journey from West to East Iceland stopping roadside to capture any piece of information that added up to a complete work of solemn beauty in the space of nature. The photo series exemplifies shapes of minimal color or morsel of saturated life such as moss which in the blink of an eye feel like the glare of information last seen awakening from a dream.

Born and raised in Connecticut but raised in multiple places — Texas and Florida — Tara predominantly grew up in New England’s brassy parts of New Haven and in the countryside parts of Southern CT. Her family lived from place to place sometimes in the back of a pickup truck with a camper as well as turn of the century apartment buildings and a home near a river. Moving constantly has filled the passion of living in the moment and that moment is reflected in Tara's art. The influence of Northeastern beaches with weathered driftwood and washed out tones are a tonal language in Tara’s work. A photograph with the feel of  a monoprint muted with washes that almost feel like stumbled watercolor and etched in lines tell a story of the past and present moment and the space between. That mystic space between that feels like an epiphany suspended in time is what drives Tara’ work. Tara splits her time between upstate New York and her native state of Connecticut with her husband and two sons.

PRESS

Dwell, Architectural Digest (Get Clever), Traditional Home, House & Garden SA, VISI, Voyage LA Magazine, Yoga Journal

CLIENTS

Amber Interiors, Champalimaud, Michelle Morgan Harrison, Modern Nest, Betsy Brown, Indeed, Julie Kantrowitz Living, Pottery Barn, Cortney Bishop Design, Lauren Nelson Design, Dacha, Cliq, Michele Varian, The Layered House LA

+ meaning of the word tulsi

Tulsi, or Tulasi, is an elixir of life in Ayurveda used as a tea and also worshiped in Vaishnava traditions in Hinduism. Tulsi's vision stems from nature and yogic philosophy based in The Vedas. The forms brought together that make pattern for the collections is an intuitive and heartfelt vision of calm and active forms that meet at a balanced point of focus much like the that of a tree that moves with a storm but stays beautifully planted in serenity.

+ favorite travel spot

Iceland

+ sign

Gemini