Tamsynettes were first shown at Transition Gallery, Bethnal Green in March 2010, with year 2 exhibited as part of the Beaconsfield, Vauxhall's show 'Fraternise-the Salon', April 2011. Year 3 was incorporated into Challenger's installation 'Monoculture', 2013.
An on-going project, the 'Tamsynettes' map her gradual deterioration over a lifetime through stylised life-size toy versions of herself she has committed to make periodically through the course of her life. Finely crafted and predominantly based on a nostalgic style of wooden toy, they express her individual concern with the steady march of time upon the body; on her own, on those whom she loves, male and female, and on the desperate ravages inflicted on a woman's form by the warping of beauty into an ideology, where the natural becomes perverse. This work encompasses her fascination with mortality, portraiture and self-portraiture and poses feminist questions revolving around beauty and the ageing process. The project will only be properly realised toward the end of her life.
"Fortunately, the contemporary obsession with skin-deep beauty infuriates some of us. Tamsyn Challenger is one of these people. Having born witness to the violent side of this fear-driven ideology of modern beauty, Challenger's sculptures and installations starkly reflect these experiences and are therefore intensely visceral, making us immediately aware of our mortality and the futility of attempting to hide one's true age behind a mask that is plain to see is merely a mask. Challenger aims to be the most post-modern woman she knows, and to inspire others to reject the doctrine of beauty as espoused by modern popular culture."
The List – March 2010