Chelsea Teta

Opening Reception: June 5th, 2014

The Animals Knew Before I Did is a solo exhibition by Chelsea Teta which brings together the fields of printmaking, painting and drawing. The works on view borrow from a background in printmaking but interject components of painting and drawing to create mixed media works. These works create narratives that explore the relationships between the body and landscape, memory and self, and history and material. Memories are interpreted as sweeping blankets of color. They are deliberately placed on canvas and paper to create a complex and unsettling dynamic between subject matter and color. This dichotomy is reminiscent of how our minds choose moments of recollection, how we recall certain things and suppress others as a means of emotional survival. Not being able to remember a lot of things from childhood enables the construction of memories on paper through the oral stories of my parents

The works are all very much process oriented, referencing a background in printmaking, but excludes the permanency (that of which a print holds). The works on view are not prints per say, but the process is very much related to the multilayered process of printmaking. Using different mediums, the same intimacy within the paper is achieved and explored. For many of the works, one mark will not make sense until the next piece is created, and the mark is created again. This repetition creates a new visual language, one with its own rhythm that coincides with the color fields to make an accessible dialogue amongst viewers.

The process of printmaking has a permanency and history which is beautiful. Interested in maintaining this “history” in the paper, a visual language was created that allows works to be constantly altered. This ability to change lends to the nebulous nature of memory, constantly fluctuating and morphing. The inability to recall memories is frustrating and many times does not connect in a coherent way until later. So in many ways, the animals, my animals, knew before I did.