Theresa Antonellis: October 2022
The Director of Martha Gault Art Gallery and instructor of art history and art studios in the Art Department of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, Theresa Antonellis earned her MFA from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst after graduating from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. There, she earned a dual degree in studio arts and art history and served as the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Assistant at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. Theresa attended artist’s residencies with Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. In summer 2019, Ms. Antonellis attended the Lucid Arts Foundation Residency, shaped by a lineage of artists devoted to abstraction. Her artworks have been exhibited with The Lucid Art Foundation virtual exhibitions and nationally at universities, colleges, and art galleries. Theresa looks forward to attending the Virginia Center for Creative arts in January 2023. Theresa Antonellis has been a member of Associated Artists of Pittsburgh since 2016. The “One Breath One Line” is an ongoing series of breath-generated marks using body-centered meditations that culminate in drawings mark the shifting boundaries between body and mind. “One Breath One Line” versions were accepted to the 105th, 106th, and 107th Annual Exhibitions of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh.
The “One Breath One Line” is an ongoing series of breath-generated marks using body-centered meditations that culminate in drawings marking the liminal boundaries between body and mind. By combining my practice of breathwork and yoga with my practice of observing, referencing range of motion, and mark- marking, the drawings and paintings unfold in an organic progression. Each mark is a breath-induced movement, produced on the exhalation. Each mark in relationship to each other represents the action of breathing in and out ; dependent, repetitive and generative. Sense of scale is mediated to encourage the viewer to be in this present moment, from very small drawing to very large paintings. The larger artworks invoke a sense of the sublime, as they tower above human scale. The breath sensation is the primary medium. The secondary medium are the inks. An iron oak gall ink follows a recipe from the Middle Ages.
UPCOMING PROJECTS/EVENTS
January 2023
I look forward to a return to the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, for an artist’s residency among visual artists, writers, and musicians. Each artist receives a spacious private studio- I can work all hours in solitude. Communal meals in the in the dining halls provide a welcoming environment to network and share details about projects, with artist from all over the world. Closest thing to heaven I know!
May 2023
I will be co-faculty on a faculty-led tour to Japan, with Professor Yukako Ishimaru (Modern Languages) to Saga University. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to bring SRU students to this important cultural center. l hope to make connections with Saga University art professors and find common ground for collaboration. Another goal is to source Japanese made artisan products, specifically mulberry papers, which I use in my ink painting.
The upcoming publication, A Place of Creation: The Lucid Art Residency written by Fariba Bogzaran, Ph.D., the Founding Director of Lucid Art Foundation includes the history of artists who have been artist-in-residence at the Lucid Art Foundation, over the past few years. (Publication date TBA, probably 2022!) I was artist in residence in 2019, and it had a profound impact. Its arranged for one artist or 2 at time to have a full month’s use of the Gordon Onslow Ford original studio and home, adjacent to Point Reyes Wilderness Preserve.
Looking back, on 2022, I was very honored to be included in two group exhibitions, featuring my large-scale ink on mulberry paintings. ‘One Breath One Line’ was invited into a select exhibition group of four women artists exclusively making abstract works on paper titled “Turning the Page” at Sykes Gallery Millersville Univesity of Pennsylvania. ‘An Evening of Stillness was featured in “Collective Gestures, the Impact of Experimental Performance at Oberlin in the 1970s.” This historic exhibition was curated by Professor Ann Cooper Albright, Chair of Oberlin College Dance Department, with Hannah Wirta Kinney, Assistant Director of Academic Programs for the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio.
