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As a child I moved frequently spending time in four different states as well as a year abroad in Jerusalem. My childhood had an eclectic mix of music, art, politics, religion, and cultures. Growing up I always felt like an outsider in a colorful but foreign environment. I saw everything objectively but never had the experience of knowing a place well. This gave me the ability to be comfortable wherever I am but never completely at home except when building my own imaginary worlds out of pieces of places I have passed through.
I started drawing and painting at an early age but originally wanted to be a filmmaker. I moved to Los Angeles to go to film school. I spent several years working in visual effects before realizing I preferred the freedom and simplicity of painting. But film both informed my process and found its way into how I conceptualize my paintings. I use photographs, video, and Photoshop and other digital tools in preparation of my paintings as well as traditional sketches and painting studies.
When I make a painting, I don’t want to paint a realistic moment in time. I want to create a scene that exists outside time or space in a dream world full of bizarre juxtapositions, fantastic elements, and mystery. I want my paintings to be beautiful but also disconcerting—perhaps even disturbing at times. My paintings are always autobiographical and spring from things that are on my mind—whether they are problems in the world at large or issues specific to my own experiences.
My current work is about location. I recently moved from Los Angeles to Boston and I feel somewhat caught between two cities which are divided by a continent but close together in my mind. I have been knitting elements of both locations together, rearranging geography, plants, buildings, memories, and people into a patchwork of my past and present worlds.
I currently live and have a studio in Somerville, MA. I can frequently be seen exploring nearby forests, fields, towns and urban areas by bike with panniers full of paints and/or cameras.
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Bekka Teerlink
Somerville, MA
bekka@bekkateerlink.com
Education
2003 |
MFA, Cinema-Television Production, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA |
2000 |
BA, Fine Arts Painting, High Honors, Brandeis University, Waltham MA |
1999 |
Yale Summer School of Art at Norfolk, Norfolk CT |
Selected Group Exhibitions
2010 |
Brandeis University, 2010 Alumni Exhibition, Waltham, MA |
2010 |
Somerville Open Studios 2010, Somerville, MA |
2009 |
Bunker Hill Community College, "Art Gone Green," Charlestown, MA |
2008 |
The Loft at Liz's, "Diverted Destruction," Los Angeles, CA |
2008 |
Spring Arts Collective, Los Angeles, CA |
2008 |
Art Slave Gallery, "Person's of Interest," Los Angeles, CA |
2008 |
Cannibal Flower, Los Angeles, CA |
2008 |
Create:Fixate, "Transformations," Los Angeles, CA |
2007 |
Spring Arts Collective, Los Angeles, CA |
2007 |
Gallery at the End of the World, Altadena, CA |
2002 |
“Still,” USC Arts Initiative Gallery, Los Angeles, CA |
2000 |
Brandeis University Senior Thesis Exhibition, Waltham, MA |
Awards
2000 |
Paul Caine Memorial Award, Brandeis University |
1999 |
Ellen Battel Stoeckel Award, Yale Summer School of Art |
1999 |
Remis Grant, Brandeis University |
Publications & Articles
2010 |
Work featured in the October issue of Wild Apples Journal, “Dwellings, Refuge, Shelter.” |
2008 |
Spraygraphic, Interview with Bekka Teerlink |
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