TALI LENNOX: A MARRIAGE OF PAINT AND THE MYSTICAL
The Little Death
Artist Tali Lennox is a dreamer at heart. Ever since her childhood when she discovered the joys of artistic creation, she has used the medium as a means of creating a realm beyond the confines of reality. A safe space where she drifts into the limitless bounds of imagination and explores concepts that have no clear answers. Her internal world is one of contradictions and complexities, an arena in which disparate elements play tug-of-war: lust, pain, life, death, the holy and the profane; Lennox has made it her priority to always push towards these grand themes in her painting—never shying away from the difficult paths of artistic growth.
Her oil paintings are characterised by a luscious palette of colours, mainly making use of cool teals and burgundies, a far cry from the loud approach of more popish art. Her work is both understated in its techniques, utilising classic oil paint techniques on silky linen canvases, yet also extremely provocative and shocking in its choice of motifs. Gruesome innards exposed, alongside tight latex garments, guarantee that her art will not be for everyone’s taste. But that in itself is the point. Lennox is an artist who is looking to please no one but herself. Her artistic practice is the same as her paintings, deep, personal and highly introspective; a dark mirror for her soul.
GATA met with the artist recently to find out more about her dark creations. The conversation touched on the allure of depth and intensity, the magic of the Japanese onsen, and the reality of living within a veil of fantasy.
GATA: Hi Tali, thank you so much for talking with us. Could you introduce yourself to the GATA audience? How did your journey as an artist begin?
Tali: I was always drawing and cutting out things with scissors since I was a few years old. I found it really natural to fixate on one image and spend hours alone. There’s a belief that it's in one's childhood that one's purpose in life is most clear. And my mother said she knew I would be an artist when I was very little, although my parents have never been pushy with my path.
It was a little later that I began the journey of oil painting as my sole focus. I moved to New York as a teenager and was modelling at the time, which I didn’t find very fulfilling. I was up for adventures and getting out of school. In hindsight, thankfully in America, I wasn’t getting as much work, so having a lot of free time, I began painting with oils. My boyfriend at the time noticed a painting in a corner of my little apartment in the East Village, and he was the one to really encourage me to move forward with it. Things went from there.
My grandmother was also a figure who really pushed for my pursuit of the arts, she couldn’t care less about any modelling photographs, she told me to be an artist. I think of her often now, 12 years later, as I continue my journey as a painter.
“As I get older, I judge my quirks less and just enjoy whatever gives me a sense of wonderment and thrills. I’m really, really sensitive and can easily be swayed toward anxieties and melancholia, so leaning toward the magical keeps my head above water.”
Peter & The Wolf, 46x38cm, oil on linen
GATA: What were some fantasies that you had when you were a child?
Tali: I was always very observant, one of the things I enjoyed most was looking out of the car window, or when I’d be pushed in a pram with a plastic cover over me to protect from the rain. I vividly remember loving how the outside world blurred under the water running down the transparent cocoon encapsulating me. I still enjoy feeling detached but always looking into the world. I feel like most of my fantasies happened alone and observing what was passing by, make believing.
My mother is somewhat of a bibliophile and I spent a lot of magical hours looking through her books, traveling into their realms. I’ve also always had a dual nature and fascinations towards both wonder and beauty but also darkness. I loved reading about serial killers as much as making pink worlds with Barbies. I even looked like a contradiction, very blonde and angelic but also a little bit demonic and spiky, sleep walking with my eyes open, crying and making witches brews. My mum told me when I was maybe eight that I had “a morbid curiosity” which I began to eagerly announce upon meeting anyone. Today it is still a duality that is one of the constant themes within my paintings, although I feel that rather than being “morbid” they emote the mystical and mortal.
Flutter 65x50cm, oil on linen
GATA: The theme of memories crops up throughout your work; why are they important to you? Do you ever worry about being lost in the past, at the cost of enjoying the present moment?
Tali: As I get older I judge my quirks less and just enjoy whatever gives me a sense of wonderment and thrill. Im really really sensitive and can easily be swayed toward anxieties and melancholia, so leaning toward the magical keeps my head above water. My imagination gets activated when I conjure up a zoetrope of time past.
When I walk in Paris where I live at night, when the lamplights are on in the winding cobalt streets, a short journey really turns into a ritual of utter awe. Walking past the same object in here, or any city I imagine all the lives and ages it’s seen. Whether it’s looking at the tiny fossils that are embedded in all the Parisian stone work which was quarried from thousand year old swamps where the city now stands, or the misshapen spiral staircases in apartment buildings walked up and down for years and years.
However, lately I’ve also been feeling emotional, engaged with certain world maladies in the current climate, particularly the genocide in Gaza. Knowing that the most unthinkable atrocities are being committed on innocent children and families every day is devastating. Words aren’t enough to capture such a bewildering open wound, so I’ve been contemplating how I can emote these feelings of grief and solidarity in new paintings.
Teardrop Triptych
GATA: You mentioned in Vogue that you collect postcards and old photographs; do you have a particular favourite that you picked up recently?
Tali: Yes, actually, recently, when I visited Japan, I went to one of its oldest onsen, in the mountains of Gunma, dating back to the 16th century. The sense of the spiritual there was so palpable, I felt so deeply calm as soon as I entered its tatami rooms and ceramic baths flowing with mineral waters amongst its graceful naked visitors, while the snow silently fell on the mountainside outside. I bought a postcard there, which shows the glowing bathhouse at night, a portal. An image to lead me back to a place of wonderment, healing, spirit and the natural world.
“I like to think that a great painting holds a never-ending story, the more you look, the more it tells you.”
To Pierce The Moon, Oil on linen, 61x46cm, 2025
GATA: Painting can be quite an isolating practice if you are working from reference images or inanimate objects. Have you ever felt lonely while creating your work? And if so, have you ever desired to work together in a more collaborative medium?
Tali: Thankfully, I’ve always loved being alone; if anything, I have to make a real effort to see friends at times. As a child I was the same, more interested in playing and drawing alone in my room than being with others. The imagination is not a lonely place to me, and the journey of making a painting makes me feel most connected to myself. When I take time off from my studio practice, I feel rudderless with a lack of identity. I used to study acting, and loved the directness of its expression: exploring stories and using one’s internal emotional instrument with others. However, painting is a less servile craft. You are not being directed or cast, and I’m too shy and self-conscious for the audition process. Lately, I have been thinking about how I can expand what I make to touch the senses in new ways, like scent and moving image.
Belladonna oil on linen, 161x130cm
“I’ve always had a tendency to lean toward depth and intensity. I feel uneasy in shallow situations and awkward during small talk. I intend for my work to invite one into a spiritual abyss.”
GATA: I remember reading once that Lucian Freud bought a near-lifetime supply of cremnitz white before it was banned for containing toxic properties. Are there any colours, brushes or even objects that are essential for your creative process?
Tali: Once I started painting on very smooth linen canvases I could never go back. My focus lies in the details. I have my own technique to render silky, illuminated imagery and materials. Painting on linen feels like painting with butter. Rough canvas surfaces now makes my skin crawl to paint on. For colour, I’ve unexpectedly found that I use cobalt teal oil paint in almost everything (preferably from Williamsburg Oils or Old Holland). A tiny amount cools down every colour without being as dominant as a cerulean or French marine. I tend to keep away from using a garish palette. In recent years, I seem to always return to twilight colours that represent the quiet mystery of the unknown, existing between two worlds.
The Dissected Graces, triptych II
GATA: Symbolism seems like an important part of your visual language. Is this something that you consciously plan out before you start your work, like, “Okay, I’m going to paint something focusing on eyes, and these eyes represent ‘a’”, or is it more a sense of the motifs coming to life as the piece unfolds?
Tali: I find it interesting to let the subconscious lead the way rather than preconceive too much. Symbols can feel like finding the right pieces of a puzzle that is already ordained by something more than a “choice”. Like the right word dropping into a poem. I enjoy the notion that ideas come from something outside of ourselves just as much as from within the psyche. Parallel to the ancient philosophy that an artist actually had an outside spiritual force that gave them their visions, rather than giving credit solely to the artist. Historically, I love looking at how symbols have been used throughout time, particularly in medieval paintings. There’s a beautiful sense of archaic threads that run through imagery. I don’t take ownership of motifs at all. People have been extracting from the same symbols and images as I have for thousands of years, and I love that profound sense of ritual, sanctity and language that visual icons and talismans contain.
Lotus Eaters, Oil on linen, 55x38 cm, 2025
GATA: You’ve talked about never resting on your laurels or being too comfortable with your art in the past, how do you see your art evolving in the future?
Tali: I genuinely love the devotional journey of painting: going to the studio maybe six or seven times a week. It really doesn’t feel like work, although at times it is frustrating and there are moments of self-doubt. To me, above all with paintings it’s the doing: the private striving to improve and explore, open inner worlds. That comes first over the audience, the politics of the art world, and the desire for greater success. It's wonderfully humbling to feel like the more I learn about painting, the less I know; it’s an infinite journey.
GATA: When you are in a creative rut, where are some places that you search for inspiration?
Tali: I love taking pilgrimages to historical relics. I just spent a couple of months traveling in Mexico with my dad, every time I go I am so in awe of the layers of mysticism and soul, I always receive new painting visions. Within one day you can go to the most unbelievably surreal ornate carved 16th century church with mirrors, formations, saints, angels within a quiet remote town, then go deep under ground and walk through caves. My spirit feels wide open there in the best way.
But staying connected to my visions also means a lot of internal exploring being willing to feel fully. For the last 15 years or so I have intermittently partaken in plant medicine rituals, which in my experience facilitates a more intensive but helpful inward excavation. It’s my desire to express from a deep place, and those are chambers that can be filled with sadness or grief but they all also lead to humbling openings of the heart, that bring sincerity and kindness.
‘Forget Me’ ‘Forget Me Not’ Oil on linen 79x40cm
GATA: With your exhibition Tremors we noticed what appeared to be religious iconography sprinkled throughout, could you elaborate a little on the thought process behind this?
Tali: I have a tendency to lean toward depth and intensity. I feel uneasy in shallow situations and awkward in small talk. I intend for my work to invite one into a spiritual abyss. Icons and symbols can be an entry point to opening up sensation and visions beyond words and material. I’m not a religious person, but I’ve always been drawn to the essence of the sacred. There have been certain times when I’ve felt inexplicable “presences” and the occasional desire to pray or commune with the spirit world. I would often judge or discard these senses, but recently I’ve allowed myself to listen to those whispers and be led by them if they arise, even if it all remains such a peculiar mystery!
Chambers, Oil on Linen, 46x33cm, 2025
GATA: What are your dreams for the future?
Tali: Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how my work can be of service and an offering of sorts. I’ve been questioning: What is the real purpose of what I am sharing, especially during these current times where injustice and fear dominate much of the world? My recent work has been more of a response to a collective experience rather than a singular expression of my own. I read a Picasso quote where he stated that if an artist believes they are a spiritual person, then it is their duty to respond to injustice and conflict in their work, for the sake of what they share with humanity. It’s a new intention for me, but I’ve started to feel that pull.
Leaving Vesuvius, Oil on linen, 33 x 24 cm, 2025
GATA: Here at GATA, cinema is one of our core influences. Do you have any films that have had a big influence on your work, or just life in general?
Tali: One of my favourite things to do is go to the movies alone. I love to escape into other warped landscapes, to feel submerged. Some of my favourite directors are early Tim Burton, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jonathan Glazer, Stanley Kubrick, and Yorgos Lanthimos. Their films always have an ether of seductive unease. Scenes that appear like moving paintings, and open up parts of my psyche that I keep hidden away. I will often listen to their soundtracks while I paint, like “Alethia” from The Master by Jonny Greenwood or the Under the Skin score by Mica Levi, “Ice Dance” from Edward Scissorhands… Sounds that instantly take hold of your experience of the world, the forbidding intrigue of what lies beneath the surface, the magic within the mystery.