tara prieto
Part time human, full time disaster.
Fried Rat is the artist brand of a human assigned to the name Tara. They are a practicing digital artist currently based in Rotorua, Aotearoa since 2017. The artist brand came to existence in 2016 when they were creating comic strips of their life as a festering adult in Cebu City, Philippines. The name is borne of intertextual reference — a play on language and their government name.
They started their life as Fried Rat as a comic strip artist, highlighting Cebuano humour, coming of age, and general silly thoughts. Eventually, they started creating fanart and getting into character creation. For that whole time, they were hesitant to call themself an artist.
After migrating to Aotearoa, Rat found themself being part of a creative community through their mahi. This community empowered Rat to title themself an artist and be fully confident in putting their work out there. They were able to participate in group exhibitions and even coordinated some for the community.
These days, their art revolves around character art, graphic novels, and whatever piece of media they are fixated on. They love comic books, gaming, and literature.
Outside of art, they are an educator to young, growing nerds and geeks (aka misfits) who also enjoy everything associated with geek culture. Rat enjoys what they do immensely, and are happy to be training padawans.
In their future, they see themself creating a graphic novel centering around diaspora and feminine power. They are currently writing its story and building that world.
