Agent Tariqa Waters lands at SAM Shop & Gallery for this very special appearance. Celebrate the launch of her first book and get your copy signed!
Winner of the 2023 Betty Bowen Award, artist Tariqa Waters' new book, Who Raised You? A Martyr Sauce Guide To Etiquette features content related to her current SAM exhibition Venus is Missing. Meet Agent Waters and enjoy beats by DJ 9, creator of audible art components featured in the exhibition.
This first book is both a survey of her paintings, sculptures, installations and public works of the last decade, and a primer on navigating the challenges and opportunities of a family’s creative life.
Waters, along with her husband, musician Ryan Waters, and their two children, have uplifted music, fashion, and the work of dozens of contemporary visual artists through a unique gallery that evolved across three locations, curatorial projects with museums, bars, and theatres, and a performance talk show, “Thank You, MS. PAM.”
Tariqa Waters is an activist artist, using humor, color, and pop iconography to attract audiences into her joyous world. It is a space of strength and laughter, of family and music, where beauty is celebrated and misogyny and racism are trapped in used bubble gum and thrown in the trash. Waters’ work often includes everyday objects and brands from her childhood, fostering accessible entry points to deeper issues of social power dynamics related to feminism, race, and class.