Visit with Teresa Christiansen
Teresa Christiansen takes us behind the process of creating her Regenerations series of cut, collaged, and re-photographed botanicals.
In this series 'Regenerations,' I physically manipulate photographic prints and re-photograph them in the studio as a reframing of landscape photography. I start with taking photographs of my immediate local environment: close-up observations of flowers, rocks, bushes, and weeds that sprout up next to paths, in front yards, and at the edge of pavement. Then in my studio, I print these images and cut into each one, layering and positioning them with colored papers to create compositions that embrace a dichotomy of depth and flatness.
Teresa Christiansen
Working with my hands is meditative, bringing order to chaos, calm to the anxious crisis of the natural world. I think of these works as results of weaving paper and images together. This craft of weaving ties a feminine history to the male-canonized genre of landscape photography, while bringing connotations of fabric to the photographic.
Teresa Christiansen
Often in the studio, I position collected flowers, leaves, or grass with the prints and then photograph them. These real specimens are held in contrast to their printed image, and create a fusion of object and depiction within the picture. As I work with prints, bending and slicing the paper, I consider how the tactile surface of a photograph is often forgotten in our image culture, where most images are viewed on glossy screens.
Teresa Christiansen
In many of my pieces, I work with prints of multiple photographic close-up views of a subject. By weaving them together I create a fantastical space that would not be seen from a single viewpoint. This contradicts how we are used to seeing the landscape represented: from a distance, in a broad, expansive view. I have titled this series “Regenerations” in reference to my practice of creating a new view out of preexisting images - a hands-on process that stands in contrast to the flood of AI-fueled images that engulf us today.
Teresa Christiansen
