Upstream

Tara Yellen paints in Tiburon, California, where she channels her obsessions and compulsions into abstract works, exploring the effects of unexpected color, shape, and movement created by layering and scraping away paint. Although her MFA is in writing,

Tara has painted and sketched her entire life. Art remained a satisfying but peripheral outlet as she took the occasional studio class and worked for a time as a freelance illustrator until 2019, when she began playing around with acrylic paints and fell in love. In the winter of 2025 she began to submit to gallery shows. Her work appeared in the January 2026 Dynamics of Color juried show at Gallery 621 in Benecia, CA, and is currently part of two exhibitions: The Fractures and Repair juried show at Thornback Gallery in Greenville, SC, and the First Annual Open Juried Exhibition at West Portal Gallery in San Francisco. Additionally, her work is scheduled to appear in the juried show, Eco Art with Heart: Living in Dangerous Times at Luna Gallery and Eco Art Studio in San Juan Bautista, CA.

Guided by aphantasia—the inability to visualize mental images—my work explores the gap between a seen object and its felt impact. Through a process of layering and scraping paint, I transform the “unseen” into a visceral, synthetic experience in which deep pigments and texture evoke memory, sound, and emotion.

-Tara

Dama Gallery is pleased to present Speed of a Dream, a group exhibition featuring the work of artists working across painting, sculpture, mixed media, and glass. On view from March 28 through May 17, 2026, the exhibition brings together a dynamic range of practices united by a shared interest in the subconscious, emotional perception, and the interior landscapes that shape lived experience.

Speed of a Dream considers the way images, colors, and forms emerge before language, how meaning is often felt rather than articulated. The works move fluidly between abstraction and suggestion, favoring intuition over narrative and sensation over certainty. Bold palettes, rhythmic shapes, and material experimentation function as visual shorthand for states of memory, longing, tension, and release.

Rather than adhering to a single genre or aesthetic framework, the exhibition embraces multiplicity. Sculptural forms converse with painted surfaces; glass refracts light as emotion; layered materials echo the fragmented nature of thought itself. Together, the works create an environment that feels immersive yet open-ended, inviting viewers to slow down and engage with their own interpretations.

While rooted in conceptual inquiry, Speed of a Dream remains deeply human. It acknowledges the fleeting nature of perception and the way dreams collapse time, distort scale, and bypass logic. This exhibition offers a visual language that resonates as much with casual viewers as with seasoned audiences. The exhibition asks not what we see, but how we feel when we see it.