Baker Artist Portfolios

Native to Baltimore City Tamara Payne is an alumnus of the Baltimore School for the Arts where she began her artist’s practices in drawing, painting, and sculpture. After studying Fashion at Parsons School of Design in New York City, NY, she returned to Baltimore to earn her BFA majoring in painting with a minor in ceramic studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Upon graduating, Tamara worked as an art educator in Baltimore City Public Schools. Having an innate passion for humanity she has been involved in foreign missions for over 27 years, participating in health aid and beautification projects while painting and curating murals in poverty-stricken communities in South Africa, The Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Baltimore City and beyond.

Tamara decided to pursue her own community-based art making full-time in 2008. In the summer of 2011, she earned her Masters of Community Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art while also completing two years of service for The Community Art Collaborative AmeriCorps program. She went straight into her community arts practices while also winning The PNC Bank Transformative Art Prize earlier that spring for a public art installation in Baltimore City. Later that year she would be honored as an Arts and Cultural Partnership Awardee from Greater Homewood, now known today as Strong City Baltimore.

Additionally, she continues to be recognized for awards and publications citing her community installations for her butterfly murals in Baltimore City. In 2022 Tamara was honored with her second Individual Artist Award on behalf of the City of Baltimore and Mayor Brandon Scott for her exhibition work for The Dear Black Girl Project. She is also a two-time honoree of the Black Wall Street Award, being recognized for her continuous contributions in grant writing, and in community activism. In the spring of 2024, she was recognized by City Council President Nick Mosby for her service as women who advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion.

 

Tamara is currently working full-time as an Assistant Professor in her role as Visual Arts Coordinator at Baltimore City Community College. She is currently enrolled in MICA’s MFAST Low Residency Studio Art Program, due to graduate in the summer of 2025 with her master’s in fine arts degree. She continues to exhibit and curate spaces in community that are used as a safe and peaceful refuge for black and brown women and girls to reflect on themselves in a joyful way.

 

As a multidisciplinary artist known for her collaborations with black women, Tamara’s dynamic work explores the constructions of marginalized communities through multimedia, fashion, public installations, film, assemblage, portraiture and performance art. The thematic elements and recurring themes explored throughout this body of work are ideas of what home is, memories of the past, grief, healing, the importance of creating safe spaces, communal practices, relationship building, loss, celebration, grounding, and other themes that Black women deem important.

 

Tamara was recently featured in Le’ Figaro Magazine in Paris France as one of Baltimore’s collective artists and entrepreneurs. She welcomes others to witness this ordained journey of her work that is truly meant to inspire all people.