Artist Teresa Dunn
Teresa Dunn received her MFA from Indiana University Bloomington in 2002. Three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Fellowship, a Jacob K Javits Fellow, she was also awarded grants from Puffin Foundation Ltd and Sustainable Arts Foundation. She appears in More Disruption: Representation in Flux by John Seed.
Teresa Dunn's paintings have been exhibited across the country in venues such as the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, The National Arts Club, The Painting Center, The Mary Heaton Vorse House, the Muskegon Museum of Art, The Dennos Museum Center, Zillman Museum of Art, First Street Gallery, forthcoming at The Sheldon Galleries in St. Louis, Missouri, and at Galerie l’Échaudé in Paris. Dunn's work has been reviewed in Art New England, AZART, and Miroir de l’Art. Dunn was included in An Artist and a Mother a collection of writing and images from artist mothers by Demeter Press. She has conducted many artist lectures including at the University of Washington Seattle and the Rome Art Program in Italy.
Dunn’s work is in collections including The Dennos Museum Center, The Zillman Art Museum, Michigan State University, Central Michigan University, The City of Grand Rapids, Paloozanoire, Kinsey Institute, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Wright State University Art Galleries, and numerous private collections in the United States, Italy, Singapore, and France. Teresa Dunn is Professor of Painting and Drawing at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
"As a Mexican American artist originally from a small town in Southern Illinois my identity, life, and art are influenced by the complexities brought about from my racial and cultural heritages. My recent paintings are a celebration of the many ways Black and Brown people, marginalized women, immigrants, and those with multicultural heritages are connected to each other whether by family, friendship, mentorship, and shared or parallel authentic experiences. My paintings amplify the voices and likenesses of real people’s stories through visually poetic realities weaving their lived experience with color, texture, and light. The individuals in my paintings are marginalized by their race, ethnicity, culture, and identity expression. While they have experienced challenges in their collective lives, themes of belonging, hope, and solidarity exude through vibrant color, lively brushwork, and immersive spaces. My narrative paintings reveal meaning as well as embrace and elevate our collective strength and resilience through fictive futures, potential alternate realities, speculative nonfiction, or disrupted depictions of past events."
Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.
I grew up in a small town in Southern Illinois. My Mom is Mexican and I grew up with both Mexican and American culture, language, food, and traditions shaping me and my experiences.
Since I was a child I was always drawing, painting, or making something usually involving people and animals. People often ask me when I became an artist or decided to be one. I'm never sure exactly how to answer that question because I have always been a maker and don't see it as a choice. Being creative has always been part of my identity and my daily experience.
However, I didn't study art until a couple years into my university studies. I started as a math major because I was good at it and not for any real sense of how I would base a career or live a life with that degree.
Two years into my studies I reached a ceiling in math where my comprehension was seriously lacking and my morale was extremely low. I didn't know what to do, but my parents encouraged me just to take some classes I thought I would enjoy. It's funny because even though I was a math major I was always drawing my roommates and painting self portraits in my spare time. So I enrolled in a few studio art courses and it felt like home. Art is what I had always been doing and where I was meant to be. I was lucky to be in a program that focused on figuration and representation, because that is where my heart was.
I got my BFA in Painting at Missouri State University and then went on to Indiana University for my MFA. I really enjoyed both programs and am grateful for my foundational experiences there.
What kind of work are you currently making?
I am currently making very large narrative figure paintings using multiple panels that create a panoramic immersive space. My visual story telling is based on real people, primary Black and Brown women, immigrants, people with complex cultural backgrounds, and women marginalized for age or gender expression.
This current body of work is called Long Lines of Women which celebrates and considers the connections women have whether through friendship, family, genetics, history, mentorship, and shared or parallel experiences.
The people who's stories I'm painting aren't usually depicted as straightforward narratives or singular events. Instead I'm drawn to a kind of non logical sequence where time and space are expansive and are infused with or disrupted by color, pattern, lyrical rhythm, and repetition.
I enjoy exploring complex external and internal realities through poetic interpretations as opposed to literal ones. My paintings often take on a layered visual quality that takes time to build and allows the viewer opportunities to unpack the painting over time as well.
What is a day like in the studio for you?
Once my daughter goes to school, I go to my morning workout then head back home to my studio. I paint for about three or four hours, then pause for a quick lunch break. When I'm eating lunch I'll sit and look at my progress and assess it. Then I return to painting for the rest of the afternoon.
Most days are really just putting in the hours of painting and giving myself the space for exciting things to happen on the canvas. I avoid doing art or teaching related computer work during the day when my brain is fresh and it is just me at home in my studio. I prefer to save tedious things like emails, applying for shows, website updates, or prepping images or documents for the evenings so sometimes late afternoons when my visual brain needs a break. I also avoid doing household chores while I'm in the studio so I keep the boundaries clean between my different obligations.
I usually put on my music or a podcast and try to tune out the rest of the world. I love listening to shows like This American Life, Radio Lab, Code Switch, and Hidden Brain. I usually leave my phone in another room. The distraction of notifications and calls pulls me out of the mental space I need to be in to make work. I prefer to not even know where my phone is.
What are you looking at right now and/or reading?
I recently read Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You--wow, they were amazing!!! I just finished watching La Casa de Flores and really enjoyed the drama.
I bought a few books by Niccolò Ammaniti when I was in Italy this summer and they are next on my list. When in Venice during a Biennale year there is always so much to see and I was with my family so I saw the main sites and narrowed down a few special additional venues.
My top two highlights were the Jenny Saville exhibition at Ca' Pesaro and Lavar Munroe and John Beadle at the Bahamian Pavilion. Both shows were outstanding and gave me some great things to think about for returning to my studio this fall.
Ambitious, epic, layered, complex, complicating, moving, powerful. Each of those words apply to Saville and Munroe's work and Celeste Ng's writing too. Something that is interesting about looking and reading (or listening) is how, even if I'm not intentionally trying to put something new in my work, being immersed in new ideas or thoughts filters into my work as my brain simmers in those exciting things.
Where can we find more of your work? (ex. website/insta/gallery/upcoming shows)
Website: www.teresa-dunn.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teresa.m.dunn/
I have a solo show scheduled for The Sheldon Galleries in St. Louis, Missouri in the spring of 2027. You can see both newer and older paintings on my website and also subscribe to my newsletter through my website. I send about 4 updates a year, so it doesn't overflow your inbox!
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