Tanya Marcuse: Artist

When you venture into nature, you probably find yourself thinking about how naturally beautiful the environment looks. Artists strive to capture that beauty, and Tanya Marcuse does this by foraging and recreating natural scenes in her photography. 

She discovered her love for photography by accident. After a drawing class she’d intended to take in college was full, she decided to take photography instead. It ended up being life changing, giving her new direction and purpose. 

“It completely changed my life. Like, it’s not at all hyperbolic to say that it saved me and changed me.”

Fear of failure in a piece is not a hindrance in Tanya’s work, but a motivator. 

“It’s really important that it really could fail…That’s part of the drive and excitement of trying to make it come together.”

Tanya puts an emphasis on both decay and growth in her pieces. Seeing the full life cycle of the environment is something that we humans can connect with on a deeper level as we process life and death. 

“I try to kind of have both of those things visible at once…in a single piece there’s some kind of sense of the duality and unity between growth and decay.”

Directed and filmed by Mia Allen and Christopher Eadicicco.

Edited by Mia Allen.

Artwork by Tanya Marcuse, Book of Miracles.