Allison Tanenhaus

Lives and works in Boston, MA, USA

Artist statement

Allison Tanenhaus (she/her) is a New York–born, Boston–based digital glitch artist. She specializes in bold geometrics, kaleidoscopic color fields, trippy op art, thought-provoking truisms, anachronistic tech mashups, and unexpected dimensional qualities. Her primary formats include retrofuturistic GIFs, loops, and music videos; abstract public art; street art cat stickers; and large-scale video projections. Source material consists of Allison’s original images, collected artifacts, and crowdsourced clips that she alters via smartphone (and occasionally AI). Made with equal parts deliberation and experimentation, the results are rainbow-hued compositions that take on a psychedelic life of their own. At a time when platforms pervasively cull personal data—and digital flawlessness is the norm—she views creatively reclaiming devices and embracing error as radical acts of autonomy, mindfulness, and personal ownership. Also looks way cool. Allison graduated from Harvard University and has studied at Emerson College, MassArt, and the School of Machines, Making, and Make Believe. Allison is a grantee of the 2019 Somerville Visual Art Fellowship and the 2021 City of Boston Transformative Public Art Program, and is a member of electronic music group The Square Root of Negative Two and optical installation duo bent/haus. Allison’s work has been showcased in 16 countries via galleries, public art, media festivals, and guerrilla street art postings. Notable commissions and exhibitions...

Artwork