Teresa Hill BA/BS Drifting Through It All Exhibition Spring 2024

Author/Artist Name

Teresa HillFollow

Files

Academic Level at Time of Creation

Senior

Date of Creation

Spring 4-25-2024

Artist Statement

Among other themes, the idea of nature reclaiming what it had lost to humanity is what has been driving my work recently. The evidence of it appears all around us; wandering past run-down homes with choking vines and knee-high weeds, traveling past old gas stations with rust-covered pillars, even old gardens left in disrepair for the wilderness to take back. I’ve been surrounded by older buildings and lived in places filled with greenery, and the interaction the buildings and plant-life have is so interesting to me. In my eyes, it makes the buildings have a new purpose outside of keeping wildlife safe. It makes those buildings feel quiet and somber, yet beautiful. Sitting there, in the weeds and grasses of what used to be a home or gas station, gives a sense of peaceful reflection.

I mostly use traditional drawing, painting, and ceramics more often to get the effects I want in my works, wanting to connect to that peaceful reflection I feel while adding a curiosity to it. All three forms are processes that call out louder than others due to the textures, forms, and vast array of hues I can get.

My ceramics have functional and/or sculptural elements that mimic plant-life while blending in animalistic traits. The pushing and pulling of forms lets me break from rigid plans of how something may look and adapt them based on how the clay reacts to being manipulated and changed. My drawings have the grain of the paper and the original color of the paper, acting as a type of middle ground for the colors. From scratchy free-handed markings to smooth blended markings, I use them all to give the drawing the best balance of color and texture while keeping the grain noticeable. For my paintings, I focus on texture and detail of the scene I’m painting. Taking more time to render the scene and giving it the same feeling I felt when originally seeing it in real-life. Whether it be a run-down gas station or an old family home, I want that same emotion I first felt to be immortalized in my paintings.

Aside from inspirations I find in my life, there have been artists that have inspired me as of late; one being Bonnie Seeman. Seeman’s use of floral and anatomical traits to create the charmingly disturbing vessels while giving them an awareness of life itself. The use of textures and colors causes leaves to look like flesh, bones to hold the structures together, and tiny details like eyelashes and insects connecting everything to each other. Another artist who has influenced my work one way or another is Edward Hopper. Hopper’s use of scenery and color scheming leads his paintings to be reflective of the beauty and/or depression of aloneness in urban and rural settings. That reconnecting of his works to real life being one of the many reasons his works influence my own.

Advisor/Mentor

Mr. John Utgaard; Mrs. Jessica Fife; Mrs. Katie Knoeringer; Mr. T. Michael Martin

Description

- Multimedia Drawing, 24" x 18", 2024

- Oil on Canvas, 24" x 18", 2024

- Stoneware Ceramic, 9.25" x 11.5" x 6.5", 2024

- Stoneware Ceramic, 7" x 6.5" x 5", 2024

- Stoneware Ceramic, 8" x 6" x 6.5", 2024

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Hill, Teresa, "Teresa Hill BA/BS Drifting Through It All Exhibition Spring 2024" (2024). B.A./B.S. Practicum Group Exhibit (ART 499). 69.
https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art499/69