Welcome to
Dream Topography
Where aerial landscapes and microscopic worlds converge
About
Tara Gillespie (Baltimore County, MD) is a mixed media artist with a passion for contemporary art. In 2018 she started mixing her own acrylic paints and experimenting with resin, amongst other materials, and her practice has evolved since. Her studio is based in Timonium, MD, and she participates in the fine art festival circuit along the East coast.
Tara also reveals her techniques in-person offering fluid and epoxy resin art classes for adults and children. She also offers these classes as an instructor at Manor Mill in Monkton, Maryland. Upcoming shows and classes are announced on this website and on her instagram (@taragill_art) as they are confirmed.
Artist Statement
My work aims to connect our world with the spiritual. In my process I exploit the properties of paint and resin to create ethereal and nature-inspired works that mimic and transcend reality. I call my work “Dream Topography” because I feel my pieces evolve to resemble 3-dimensional maps where the viewer has an aerial view through layers of form in nature including atmosphere, landforms, minerals, water bodies, plant life, and cellular structures. What appears to one observer as a view of the universe may, to another, resemble the hidden worlds revealed beneath a microscope. By capturing both the cosmic and the cellular, my paintings remind us that the vast and the infinitesimally small can evoke the same sense of wonder, and that the same patterns and energy shape galaxies and cells alike. This suggests a deep interconnectedness between all scales of existence.
Description of Material and Technique
My work is created through mixed media processes using acrylic paint, mica powders, alcohol inks, pigments, epoxy resin, organic structural materials, such as balsa wood and rattan, and natural found objects. I work on custom-built wood panels building modular compositions, often constructing custom molds and surfaces that allow the material to flow and react organically. Many of the natural elements incorporated into the work including seashells, palm fronds, and pressed botanicals are personally foraged and collected creating a direct physical connection to the environments that inspire the work. Through repeated layering, sanding, and resin pours each surface develops depth, translucency, texture, and dimensionality. The work is process-driven and rooted in fluid movement, material interaction and shifting scales of perception, resulting in abstract “micro-worlds” that can be interpreted as aerial landscapes, geological formations, microscopic structures, or imagined environments.
Calling all lovers of flowers 🌺❤️ Check out some of these beautiful student projects from today’s resin tray class! In this class we had 3 students who made their trays even more personal by bringing in their own dried flowers, a pet picture, and coins! I love all the different designs. 😍 @manormillmonkton
#resinclass #resintray #artclass #driedflowers
I’ve been trying to find the words for what Yayoi Kusama has meant to me, and I’m realizing that “favorite artist” doesn’t come close. She was the catalyst for my creative reemergence. I discovered Kusama during a time when I had been away from making art for a very long time. I became fascinated by her work, and then by her life. The more I learned about her, the more I admired her courage, her extraordinary sense of self, and her unwavering commitment to making the work that existed inside of her. Her example changed something in me. She influenced my decision to pursue my master’s degree, inspired much of my writing there, and eventually two tattoos I carry as reminders to be brave in my own art and to continue through adversity. But perhaps the greatest thing she gave me was permission to take my own strange internal world seriously, to trust the things I see that perhaps no one else sees, and to keep making the work that feels unmistakably mine. I never met Yayoi Kusama, yet her influence is woven throughout my creative life. Thank you, Yayoi, for showing me what it looks like to devote a life to your vision. Thank you for helping me find my way back to mine. I’ll carry that with me for the rest of my creative life. ♾️❤️ Rest in Infinity Yayoi Kusama
#yayoikusama #RestInInfinity #YayoiKusamaForever #ArtistInspiration #kusama
A few glimpses from the Orbit & Origin exhibit @manormillmonkton ✨🌑🪐 I loved seeing how each artist interpreted these expansive ideas…where we come from, what we’re made of, the worlds beyond us, and the patterns that repeat across scales. From black holes and imagined planets to geological textures, sculptural forms, abstraction, light, and microscopic-looking details, the exhibit invites you to look closely and think expansively. That relationship between the immense and the cellular is central to my own work. I love creating pieces that might feel like aerial landscapes, distant worlds, or something viewed beneath a microscope. It was wonderful to see my little worlds become part of this larger conversation.
Big thanks to all my friends who came out to see the exhibit and support me yesterday. It was so lovely to see you and meant so much to me. ❤️
#artexhibit #cosmicart #microworlds #abstractart #dreamyart
“Dust Veil” - 6x6” and at least a solid inch thick. This mini galaxy has so many layers I lost count. Swipe to see the first layer which is the acrylic painting before the resin began.
#cosmicart #mixedmediapainting #resinart #celestial #dreamtopography
Dust Veil ✨
Only 6 × 6 inches, but somehow it feels endless.
This piece has so much depth that the longer I look at it, the less I feel like I’m looking at a surface and the more I feel like I’m looking into something past the resin, through the haze, into a distant field of stars and suspended matter.
I love when a small piece can hold that kind of scale. Something intimate enough to fit in your hands, but expansive enough to get lost in. 🌀✨🌌
#DreamTopography #DustVeil #OrbitAndOrigin #cosmicart #mixedmediaart
Io Moon 🌙🪐 - 6x18”
Inspired by Jupiter’s moon Io and the strange beauty of worlds beyond our own.
Rather than creating a literal planetary landscape, I wanted this piece to feel like a fragment of an imagined world with cratered terrain suspended between translucent layers of atmosphere, mineral formations, and cellular forms.
Up close, the scale becomes uncertain. Are we looking down at the surface of a moon, through an atmosphere, or into something microscopic?
That space between the planetary and the cellular is where I keep getting lost. 🌀✨ Swipe to see my inspiration as this image of Io and the lavender color palette blew my mind.
#io #DreamTopography #OrbitAndOrigin #cosmicart #mixedmediaart
Worlds Within Worlds ✨
A new 18 × 24 mixed-media piece created for the upcoming Orbit & Origin exhibition @manormillgallery
This piece explores one of the ideas at the heart of my work. From the microscopic to the planetary, I’m fascinated by how often nature seems to speak the same visual language. The way patterns repeat across vastly different scales. A cellular structure viewed beneath a microscope can resemble an aerial landscape. Mineral formations can look like distant planets. Flowing water can echo atmospheric currents, and something only inches across can feel like an entire world.
Each tile in Worlds Within Worlds was created as its own micro-world layered with paint, texture, sculptural elements, pigments, inks, and resin, then brought together into a modular composition. Getting lost in each one is part of the design. 👁️🌀✨
#WorldsWithinWorlds #DreamTopography #OrbitAndOrigin #MixedMediaArt #cosmicart
Rainy weekend days in the studio are kinda my favorite. The businesses around me are closed and I feel such freedom when there’s no where to be. Here’s everything I worked on today in true mixed media fashion, as in I nearly got into everything 😂 . My “Orbit and Origins” mini collection is nearly finished. 🌌🪐
#artstudiolife #mixedmedia #fulltimeartist #rainyday #workinprogress
