Teri Dryden - Los Angeles, United States
Teri - “My love of experimenting with different types of media has led me to the wonderful world of collage. Through this uniquely versatile medium, I have been able to explore a more personal and intuitive process in which I can express myself more freely, openly and honestly. I start by painting a canvas black, then layer pieces of assorted textured paper in various neutral shades. Driven by instinct and the thrill of discovery, I pick and pull, rip and tear—sometimes whole sections, sometimes mere slivers—exploring, exposing, revealing, and creating a topography upon which I begin to build. Recently I have become interested in the idea of orienteering (finding one’s way with navigating tools) as a metaphor for discovering my own emotional and psychological path. I allow my memories, experience and knowledge to arrange paper and paint into a map of where I’ve been, where I am, and where I might go. My inner compass guides me toward self-awareness, with frequent detours into fascinating unknown territories on the journey Dante calls ‘our life’s way’.”
John - Instantly, I found Teri’s usage of the word “topography” very interesting, due to the fact that, upon initial inspection, her work reminded me immediately of maps. This is a concept which is, arguably, quite passé, considering the fact that a number of artists working in the late 80s until the mid 90s (Kathy Prendergast’s ‘City Drawings’ being a prime example) seemed to simultaneously develop a fixation with the external mapping of the internal operations of the mind (possibly resultant from a revitalised interest in Freudian psychoanalysis). However, I found Teri’s work unlike examples of collage I’d been familiar with in the past. She maintains an allegiance to a palette which evokes the most arid of landscapes, as if seen from great heights, and the effect of viewing the work (for me, at least) is akin to being privy to a sort of vast despair. Not an overwhelmingly uplifting assessment, but a powerful and thought provoking one, the affects of which will, I hazard, outlast those elicited by the work of a lot of contemporary artists who are concerned more with sensationalism in the short term than with the production of meaningful work which has the capacity to transcend.
Teri can be contacted at:
818-640-3084 or tbomb1957@yahoo.com
All images copyright of Teri Dryden.
