Christine Tamblyn, New Media Artist, UCI Professor, Dies at 46

Christine Tamblyn, an assistant professor of studio art at UC Irvine who also had a career as a new media artist, has died after a battle with breast cancer. She was 46.

David Trend, chairman of the university’s studio art department, called Tamblyn’s death on Jan. 1 “a tragic loss for the University of California and the cultural community at large.”

Born in Illinois, Tamblyn was trained at the Art Institute of Chicago. She received a master’s in fine arts at UC San Diego and also received numerous awards for her artwork.

She became part of a new media art movement involving artists who assemble works created for performance on the computer.

Tamblyn’s CD-ROM on women and technology, “Mistaken Identities,” compared 10 women’s biographies, while her own life’s work, “Archival Quality,” was achieved with interactive graphics using samples from her videos and performances.

Tamblyn began teaching at UCI in 1996, the same year she was diagnosed with cancer, Trend said. She died in San Francisco with her family at her bedside.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Lab, 2948 16th St., San Francisco, 94103-3613 or the Christine Tamblyn Memorial Scholarship fund, San Francisco State University Foundation, SFSU, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, 94132.