Exhibitions
SIMON TATUM + HARU SAYSO: UNDER NEATH CONTENT
E. Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Center (Vanderbilt University) / 1204 25th Avenue S. August 30, 2022 - September 16, 2022
Simon Tatum, Haru Sayso
Under Neath Content, a pop-up collaborative Exhibition from artist Simon Tatum and recording artist/content creator Haru Sayso, is on view in Gallery Two at the E. Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Center at Vanderbilt University. The exhibition exhibition is up from August 30 to September 16, 2022 with Gallery Hours from Mondays thru Fridays 10AM to 4PM.
This exhibition was sparked by chance encounter between the two artists while SimonTatum was walking back to his apartment and heard beats coming from a car driven by Haru Sayso. This meeting led to an impromptu listening session as both artists sat in the car playing Sayso’s self-produced tracks. The encounter expanded into the collaborative Under Neath Content exhibition.
Simon Tatum was born in George Town, Grand Cayman. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree from Kent State University (USA), and my thesis showcase titled the Romantic Caribbean was shown at Kent State University’s CVA gallery in March 2021. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions which include, Arrivants: Art and Migration in Anglophone Caribbean World at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society and the Sense of Place exhibition at Spinnerei Halle 18 in Leipzig, Germany. Tatum was also selected as one of the artists for the Toof Print public poster/ public newspaper collaboration between the Alice Yard collective ( Belmont, Trinidad) and the Trafo Haus publishers (Kassel, Germany) for Documenta fifteen. He was honored in 2016 with an international travel grant from the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands to attend the Caribbean Linked IV residency programme in Oranjestad, Aruba. Moreover, he was also the first scholar sponsored by the Peter N Thomson Family Foundation in Grand Cayman to pursue a graduate programme.
Tatum’s Romantic Caribbean explores the use of found materials as a way to illustrate the circulation of international trade. he wanted to see if he could assemble together found materials from various locations to create keepsake items that would feel like they belonged to a Caribbean tourist resort; more specifically, he wanted to create keepsake items that felt like they could have belonged to the fantasy resort illustrated in The Tamarind Seed film ( a 1974 romantic thriller directed by Blake Edwards), which he used continually as a reference within his thesis research. This experiment resulted in the creation and installation of a small series of found object sculptures he refers to as “trophies” along with a set of associated posters. Some posters feature Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif who were lead actors within the film.
Haru Sayso is a multi-faceted hip hop artist from Birmingham, AL who has settled in Nashville. Haru’s love for creating began with drawing at a very young age which developed into him writing and illustrating his own comic books. As he got older, he began to listen to hip hop and was inspired to make his own music. By the age of 16, Haru taught himself how to write lyrics and produce instrumentals, while grasping the understanding rap fundamentals. During his 20s, Haru Sayso began traveling and performing his music at shows in various cities in the South, dominating in what is known as the “Southern Circuit”.
Sayso says that his creative process starts from “ground zero”. As a recording artist and content creator, he uses his space in Vanderbilt’s Gallery Two to show things that are important to him; he alludes to stories about being a young creative and navigating the public sphere through digital venues and social media. There are objects placed within the gallery that serve as props, things that were collected from his at-home recording studio. These props include cultural influences like an album by young Kanye and an album by the Proud Family. The props also include personal journals, collage works made from his old notebooks and sample prints of Planet Sayso (the artist’s earlier digital work).
