New York based painter Tara Atefi is a 2014 graduate of Valencia College in Orlando and studied with Odd Nerdrum in Larvik, Norway, in 2017. To Atefi, art – both the process of creation and the finished product – is deeply tied to communication, to self-expression and one's attempts to wrestle with and find footing in the world around them. Her paintings confront uncomfortable subject matter and do so through incredibly dour imagery. This is not grotesque art however, rather art and an artist prodigiously engaging with the terrible sublime. Atefi is able to reach into past traditions of oil painting and extract from them their tonal essence, coloring the visual qualities of the scenes she paints and their emotional weight.