Tamara Natalie Madden

Tamara Natalie Madden in her studio, ARTS ATL. 

Tamara Natalie Madden, one of the most humble and gracious contemporary painters that ever came to notice, hurdled many health related obstacles, leaving behind a body of beautiful work that transcends time and memory.

The Black Queen, mixed media, 30” x 20,” The Morning News. 

Goldilocks, mixed media, ARTS ATL. 

Born in St. Andrew, Jamaica on August 16, 1975, Madden’s family eventually moved to the United States. She studied art and creative writing, eventually graduating from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. At age twenty-two, she was diagnosed with IGA Nephropathy, a rare genetic kidney disorder. Believing that death was on the horizon, she visited Jamaica to say goodbye to her family, but a long lost brother gave her one of his kidneys. After a successful transplant surgery one year later, she returned to the United States creating a new body of work, basing in Atlanta, Georgia and becoming a fine arts professor at Spelman College. 

The Prize, mixed media, 30” x 40,” The Morning News. 

Spatial, mixed media, 24” x 18,” The Morning News. 

Madden’s mixed media paintings are ethereal fruits of wondrous delights, full of vitality and magic. They tie together the multifaceted layers of African diaspora cultures, stories, and histories into the mystical fairy tale realm of Marc Chagall and Gustav Klimt’s Vienna Secession period. Her rich, colorful palettes highlight Black figures, placing them in the most imaginative spaces, backgrounds often a fantastic blue-green and teal like that of water and sky. Attractive birds engage with their complex clothing patterns and gold leaf Afrocentric hair and headscarves, symbolizing the artist’s freedom from the harmful affects of disease. Her strong, expressive portraits speak of dignity and pride in heritage, lighting distinctive features of broad noses and thick lips, collectively combining various art style influences into a narrative that was her own illustrious signature. 

From MoCADA Contemporary Art Week.

“Africa inspires most of my art,” Madden revealed in Afri-Love. “I am from Jamaica, but I see Africa every where. The beautiful people, their amazing skin tones, their full lips and thick hair – all of that inspires me. I am inspired by the strength of the people, and I am inspired by their pride and inherent power, and I see royalty in all of them. That is why I paint the images that I paint. African people all over the world have been looked down upon, pushed aside, and their beauty hasn't been appreciated. I want my work to show that we are decendants of royalty, and that inherently we are all kings and queens.”

Willow Moon, oil and mixed media on canvas, 30” x 20,” Detroit Art Review.  

Madden’s works have been exhibited all over the United States such as Art Basel in Miami, Florida, the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, New York,  She has been written about in Okay Africa, The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Jamaican Gleaner, and several other publications. She is in the collections of the Charles Wright Museum in Detroit, Michigan, the Alverno Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and The Margaret Cuninggim Women's Center of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Bridgeman Art Library in London, UK. Also included in MSNBC’s The Grio top 40 artists to watch for 2014, Madden created “Never Forgotten,” a Puffin Foundation funded grant project to raise poverty awareness. 

Tamara Natalie Madden and her work, Eccentric Glow. 

Sadly, on November 4, 2017, just weeks after being diagnosed, Tamara Natalie Madden passed away from stage IV ovarian cancer and is survived by her daughter Nidalas Simone Madden. In Spelman College’s memorium statement, “While relatively new to the College, she was an extraordinary artist who enjoyed teaching and especially loved her talented Spelman students that she taught in her drawing classes and the materials and concepts courses she developed.”