Module 3: Week 9 (14-21 Sept)

 Artist: Vanessa Thill

Vanessa Thill is an artist based in New York. She has presented her work  in group exhibitions in the US and Europe. She contributes critical writings to such publications as Bomb, Cultured, Artforum, and Terremoto and is engaged with community organizing through Art Against Displacement, a group of artists and arts workers who fight against displacement with the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the LES, and who advocate for popular power and community control over land use and housing.

Exhibition: Balsam

Thill’s practice is one of material and spatial transformative encounters. The sculptures are created by submerging paper in a bath of pigments and other found materials sourced from her growing library of ingredients. After the pooled liquids evaporate and crystallize onto the paper, Thill coats the long paper strips in resin, creating a kind of earthly dermis. These flesh-like membranes are framed by blackened tree branches which act as a partition—or a portal—to a more expansive and unknowable universe.

Vanessa Thill, Portal V, 2020, Enamel, Spray paint, concrete pigment, dish soap, fake blood, coffee, house paint, plaster flakes, metallic powder, family of flies, ink, sand, glue, wax, sawdust, resin, and mixed media on paper; rubber gaskets; metal hardware; split-shot lead weights; torched branches, 90 × 41 × 24 inches (228.60 × 104.14 × 60.96 cm)

Six Degrees of Separation
2015
mixed media on tea bags
various
NFS

In “Six Degrees of Separation” I wanted to tap into the idea that the world is getting smaller and people are more closely related, or at least known to each other, than we realize. Using a tea bag as the material or canvas lends the work a personal touch, which was important aspect of the work. Tea itself has many connotations…social and cultural, ceremonial as well as intimate. The tea bags in this collection were all used for making a cup of tea. The tea was removed, the portraits were transferred to the paper, and then refilled with the tea. I started with portraits of family and people that I know. Then I reached out via the Internet, that technology that is contributing to making the world seem so small, to others for images to use. I do not personally know everyone in this collection. But we are connected because of someone else that we each know.