Theresa Anderson
In Residence: September 13 – October 28, 2010Exhibition: Opens Thursday, October 28; continues through November 12, 2010Learning Lab: PS 1Charter Schoolin betweenCreative Resident Theresa Anderson culminated her seven-week residency at PlatteForum with a body of work that explores the illusive idea of flying with its sense of hope, fear, freedom and ultimately, power. Anderson’s creative process can be described as a messy, chaotic one, moving between performance, painting, journaling, between moments of absurdity and fragility, to the power of gesture, placing herself in situations that are uncomfortable and clumsy, yet synthesize into finished works. The paintings and installations in the exhibition incorporate destroyed narratives whose images make total sense to those who have had the privilege of observing her work. This includes a group of students from P.S.1 Charter School who have been guided by Anderson in Learning Labs as they create personal work in response to the idea of flying.box: fashion as paregoric anchors the exhibition. A 10’ x 11’ painting closes over you while enveloping and encasing you. Highly patterned and encrusted with shards of dolls and ornament, the work defines an ephemeral space filled with a suspended “sail” comprised of plastic bags and tethered to the gallery walls and floor. As in her past exhibitions, the installation becomes the anchor for other paintings that elaborate the notion of flying.In an intensive series of Learning Labs with P.S.1 Charter School she led the teens as they discussed and explored her very open conceptual process. Utilizing relational visual and narrative metaphors concerned with the feeling of empowerment, control, and flying, each student created a process journal and finished paintingswhose content emerged from a series of experimentations in live performance, altered books, paintings, collage and writings throughout the residency. One group performance that fueled the discussion about control, fear and chaos involved pulling a single bed throughout LoDo led by a winged figure clothed in shards of journal writings. Visit Theresa's website.
