Terri Warpinski

Surface Tension

November 11 - December 31, 2014

Through the lens of the camera, Warpinski seeks out the complexities in the relationship between personal, cultural and natural histories. Her current work focuses on three border zones – the former Berlin Wall, the U.S.- Mexico Border, and the Israel-Palestinian separation barrier. The project, Surface Tension, explores the multiple and conflicted perspectives that complicate these places. Walls and fences, embodiments of social and political oppositions, mark and divide the physical landscape. Surface Tension fuses various methods for capturing photographic images and incorporates the juxtaposition of multiple frames arranged in diptychs, triptychs or single frames configured in installations to explore the complexity of the present, past and future of these sites. Working with and combining images from three geographies conflates the tensions endemic to each and questions the ethics of conflict through an open-ended narrative.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Terri Warpinski lives in Eugene, Oregon where she maintains a robust studio practice and is a Professor of Art at the University of Oregon. Over three decades her photographically based creative practice has been focused on the relationship between personal, cultural and natural histories. Helen A. Harrison of The New York Times has written of Warpinski’s landscape work: “She is especially attuned to the often subtle evidence of human impact on nature. . . . (Her work) invite(s) speculation about the secrets that may be revealed by close scrutiny and creative speculation.” Her work has been shown in over a 100 exhibitions at a wide range of galleries, arts institutions, andinternational festivals including the Pingyao International Festival of Photography in China; the US Embassy in Jerusalem; Houston International Fotofest; the Oregon Biennial at Portland Art Museum; Center for Photography at Woodstock; the University of the Arts Philadelphia, San Francisco’s Camerawork and most recently in the Portfolio Showcase 7 at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins. Warpinski’s current project, Surface Tension was featured in the spring 2014 issue of the Society for Photographic Education’s journal Exposure with an essay written by Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art. She held an artist residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, was distinguished as a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Israel 2000-2001, and currently is a recipient of a 2014 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Art Commission and a Ford Family Foundation Career Opportunity Grant. Warpinski received her B.A. degree is from the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay, and she holds both an M.A. and M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. https://www.terriwarpinski.com/