Bekka Teerlink

Bekka Teerlink has no hometown; she moved frequently as a child, which led her to escape into daydreams and build a sense of home in her mind to take wherever she went. She was always the outside observer, which allowed her to see things fresh and make connections in her mind between very different places, things, and experiences that she collected along the way. In her work, she creates magical realist landscapes full of symbolism and suggestions of narrative and commentary on the world around her.

Teerlink has a BA from Brandeis University in Studio Fine Arts Painting with a minor in Creative Writing Poetry and an MFA in Cinema-Television Production/Cinematography from the University of Southern California. She currently lives in Medford, MA, and has a studio at Vernon Street Studios in Somerville, MA, and works at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.


Artist Statement

My paintings are visual poems that weave together ordinary things into a surreal scene full of magic and emotion. I want to acknowledge the darker truths in the world, balanced with a sense of wonder and beauty. I am inspired by mundane details of my life, along with the constant flood of information about what is happening in the world.
To start a painting, I create a loose photo-collage sketch in ProCreate, constructed from my library of photos and videos. The collage often changes throughout to allow me to keep things open while finding the painting. The painting composition might change several times, and painted images get overlaid like double exposures, leaving traces of movement, time, and fleeting thoughts.
I paint as a way to process my anxiety about the world around me—painting gives me a release for what I’m feeling when I’m at a loss about what I can change. I use exaggerated colors that vibrate with each other and are felt on a physical level—intense and cathartic at the same time. I try to ground myself in the reality of the present moment and manage my runaway worries that distort my experience and perception. The finished images have a haunting feeling that is intended to be evocative of my experience of being an individual living within the context of a pandemic, climate crisis, injustice, and political instability.


https://bekkateerlink.com/

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