Created

My practice draws from historical objects of communication—postcards, photographs, glass slides, decorative artifacts, and carved wood—to explore how people assign meaning, emotion, and value to things. I am drawn to tangible objects that have endured: items someone kept, cared for, or carried across time, often without knowing they would survive.

I work as an archivist and appreciator, preserving and re-presenting objects that once mattered deeply to someone. Through re-scaling, transferring, carving, and re-contextualizing found materials, I slow the viewer down and invite a moment of attention—an opportunity to recognize the care, labour, and intention embedded in everyday artifacts.

My work embraces nostalgia as empathy rather than sentimentality. I am interested in how meaning accumulates over time, how stories are projected onto objects when original context is lost, and how we continue to seek connection through the things we make, send, wear, and keep.

In an increasingly digital and intangible world, my work values the handmade and the tactile—not in opposition to technology, but as a reminder of the human need to communicate, to leave traces, and to be seen.

Repurposed Herds
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Repurposed Herds

These pieces are ‘decorative’ antiques that I have collaged and painted directly onto, re-contextualizing the pieces and giving them a new story.

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Uninformed Consent
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Uninformed Consent

With this series, I’m exploring the idea of something not-from-your-body being added to the body. The invasive and intrusive nature of surgery.

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Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

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Combining 19th century carte-de-visites portraits with contemporary haute couture fashion, this series explores mash-ups embodying the evolution of photography as social media and social currency.

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Altered Documents series
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Altered Documents series

All of these pieces use antique print materials, with collaged elements on top, including transfers of historical photos or rubber stamps, to give an alternate context to the original. 

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“Do Not Remove” series
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

“Do Not Remove” series

These photos document existence in another time and place. Not the big events or important people, but the mundane and everyday. I found the photos in this series in an unlabelled folder at the provincial archives, and the seemingly random nature of the subjects drew me to them.

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Deck of Boxes series
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Deck of Boxes series

These boxes are like little devotional objects for characters. The exteriors show their outer appearances, and the interiors delve deeper into their characters, revealing their traits and secrets. Each character has an element associcated with it, as well as a color. And the edges of each wooden base has a pattern unique to each character.

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Wedding portraits
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Wedding portraits

These are all based on famous paintings, and I've put the faces of the couples into the work, and they're painted at the same scale as the original paintings. 

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Glass Slides series
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Glass Slides series

The source for these hand-painted gel transfers were a series of glass slides dating back to the early 1900s, found in my great-aunt’s dirt basement.

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Postcards to Joe Jett series
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Postcards to Joe Jett series

I found these postcards in a second hand book store, and they're all dated from the 20s. They are addressed to a man named Joe Jett in Taber, Alberta from a woman in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

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Postcards to Mrs. Lindahl series
Tanya Camp Tanya Camp

Postcards to Mrs. Lindahl series

The source of these paintings were 100 postcards that I found in an old second hand book store, all addressed to the same woman (Mrs. Lindahl) in Westlock Alberta, from the 1920s to the 80s.

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