When you walk into TAP Wine Lounge on Del Paso Boulevard, your senses are heightened. You’re instantly hit with a sweet aroma and colorful abstract art hanging from the walls. One side of the lounge space is a bar area serving Black-owned boutique wines, while the other side is cozy, filled with sofas and chairs.
Owner Cynthia Dees Brooks said the lounge is a place where you can be inspired. She said it’s a beautiful intersection between wine, art, food and community.
“My tagline is, wine is the perfect backdrop to a moment, a mission and a movement,” Brooks said. “It's chaos-free, judgment-free. At the end of your day, before you go to your next job, it's a place you can stop in and chill.”
TAP Wine Lounge is open five days a week — Wednesday through Sunday, and utilizes the other two days for special events, according to Brooks. The space offers mixers, community group meet-ups, TAP talks featuring authors, an open house, and art installations.
Brooks said she has owned the space for three and a half years, which, before the lounge, was a dive bar. She said she combined art with wine because art speaks to you in a way.
“I think the pairing of art and wine is natural,” Brooks said. “I feel like wine is a medium where I say good food, good wine, great people. It's not carefully undertaken. It opens your senses up to be more expressive, and the barriers come down. This is what I've experienced in my years of being in groups and sipping.”
Art Installations
This Saturday, Tap Wine Lounge will be having an art installation called “Unbound: The Art of Becoming” from artist Jermaine Tilson, also known as J Crux. Tilson will be displaying new and old art pieces and has a residency at the lounge for the next three months.
(L-R) Cynthia Dees Brooks and Jermaine Tilson outside of TAP Wine Lounge on Del Paso Blvd., on Friday, August 1.Keyshawn Davis/CapRadio
Previously, the lounge had only featured women artists, which resonated with Brooks. Her operations manager, however, noted that they needed male energy in the building. Brooks put a call out to a few artists, and Tilson answered the call.
“I'm kind of excited because I love that he is very active on social media and active in the community,” Brooks said.
Tilson is an artist in many different areas and aspects, but his primary medium is painting. He grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and started painting at the young age of six when his therapist introduced him to Mandalas, which are circles with different shapes and patterns.
“I kind of just took it from there and just kept going,” he said.
Growing up, painting was a way for him to project many positive aspects of his life. Tilson has been an artist for 25 years now.
Tilson uses acrylic for all of his paintings and describes his art as “very abstract.”
“But, lately, I've been kind of branching out to kind of throw a little bit of realism in there — paint faces and just certain things outside of just abstract,” he said. “I kind of mix it in between some abstract and actual objects and people.”
Tilson said that for his solo show “Unbound,” he wants everyone to see all the other styles he has beyond his abstract art.
Wine & Art
Tilson has done solo shows in the past, but never at a place like the wine lounge, he said.
He will also be creating live art as his friends play the piano and sing jazz.
“It's gonna be a little bit of a chill spot, not too much energy, but just very mellow,” he said. “I'm really excited for that aspect.”
Jermaine Tilson stands in front one of his original paintings that is displayed at TAP Wine Lounge on Del Paso Blvd., on Friday, August 1.Keyshawn Davis/CapRadio
Tilson said if you do decide to purchase some of his work, do it because you love art.
“If you like my art, you love my art, and you want to collect it, do that,” he said. “Don't purchase my art out of petty—or my trauma, or buy into my trauma, because for me, it doesn't feel proper.”
He also said do not buy his art because he’s a Black man, either.
“It feels like you like my art because I'm a Black man that went through something growing up, and I didn't result in other ways,” he said. “Just buy it because you want to collect it and you want to see my artist career progress.”
The Unbound: The Art of Becoming will start this Saturday at 4 p.m. at the TAP Wine Lounge at 1011 Del Paso Blvd.
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