Owner/Founder
Tangier A. Cullens
TangiersOasis@aol.com
Business: 212.665.2631
Mobile: 917.312.4905
Native New Yorker-I migrated from the suburbs of Suffolk County Long Island to the Big Apple, concrete city. Emerged in the tapestry of Metropolis, I have come into my own. I am inspired by everything & everyone. I have learned so much, unintentionally. This city has a way of seeping into your skin. It gives you a magic and strength that you carry and exude- wherever you go.
New York City is like a puzzle with sliding pieces that transform & fit in different spaces depending on who is trying to assemble it. I’ve gone on nightlife adventures experiencing everything from Jamaican dancehalls to live rock bands performing at CBGB’s. I’ve seen the heroine pushers in Alphabet city circa 1994. I’ve buzzed with the curious intellectuals who attend Chelsea Contemporary art shows. I’ve spent the entire day soaking up the sun, watching the Puerto Rican Day Parade (yelling, “Viva Puerto Rico!”).
I have marched for a cause at Union Square. I’ve survived 911. I read by candlelight in the blackout. I’ve been to Sony studios for private listening parties of R & B Superstars. I’ve slept in a 15th century castle in the south of France. I’ve smelled the salt water at a Maxwell concert on Jones Beach. I have lived recklessly. I’ve lived many days, as if it were my last. As I slow down and seriously look for the splendor in everything-I know that everything has it’s precise place; it’s moment in time to be it’s most beautiful.
Our Earth is this way. It too will have its precise moment to be most beautiful. I believe we are all part of an epicenter created to pulsate a rhythm. This rhythm massages evolution. It has triggered Earth’s transformation. People are sharing and intermingling. The world shrinks day by day. But it really is “a small world after all”…as the 21st century unfolds, changes & creates an ever-changing lightning fast pace, cultures are melting and intertwining worldwide. The web (internet) has become so expansive; people in the most remote places on earth are exposed to phenomena they wouldn’t have ever been, just a decade ago.
When humans are weaved into a fabric so strong and durable, the earth will begin to fulfill its true potential. When all humans are of one ominous ancestry-all the seed of one origin-this is when the Earth will be at it’s “most beautiful” moment. As Earth rotates, suns and moons rise and set, the past is simultaneously written with the future. I want to see my images represent one thread in this Earth’s fabric, so that it may not be forgotten.
My Grandfather was born in 1910. Imagine what the world had shown him.
In his death, all of his ideas, passions, experiences, triumphs and failures have also ceased to live. I am an artist, I have the choice of leaving something tangible and solid behind to speak my mind-immortally, eternally. Search into who I am, where I come from, and where I’m expected to go has inspired me to love myself. I see myself in others and see others in myself. As I mature I understand that my experiences are more than just saved inside me-but they are in fact “OF ME”. I want to rejoice in my womanhood. For I have not always understood the raw power of it. I have dared to do things others said I could not. I am the cradle of fertility. My hair grows unruly. My hips are wide. My skin is the color of sun-tanned hide. My forehead is high and wide-for my knowledge is infinite. My heart is only the size of my fist-yet it can hold enough love to die for another. I am African American, Native American, Polish American, Irish American. I am things I have yet to discover.
Here, in this incredible international mosaic (NYC), I’ve come to observe and breathe in the unique visions it has to offer. My art is what I exhale. The fact that I’ve been given the ability to imagine and then create the things I see in my mind’s eye sometimes overwhelms me. Look into the fantastical universe inside Tangier’s mind. I call it my Oasis. TangiersOasis. I have labored over inclinations and things I’ve remembered from my dreams. I have done several versions of one painting. I’ve even completed some-only to throw them away, if I didn’t feel my spirit flowing from them. I have grown so much. I have changed so much. I began drawing as a small child, doodling and humming as I splashed color onto newsprint. Now I paint on flat canvases, I’ve plastered to the hallway of my apartment. I have emerged from an artistic cocoon. I’m now a butterfly floating on the wind or stopping briefly on the petal of the loveliest flower. But I am what is in full bloom.
I love the diversity of my ethnicity and I create artworks that speak that "loud & clear". I am not afraid to be different-in fact, I revel in that. Experimentation with acrylic paint, colored pencil, ink & digital enhancement has transformed my work. This multi-faceted, multi-media, multi-layered technique makes my work unique, entrancing and indicative of me. Will I become a strong and durable thread? Will I fulfill my true potential?
"I am every woman"-as an old Native American poem reflects...
I AM BEAUTIFUL at this precise moment.
