Alexis Teplin

About the work

This pair of works are from a recent series that began over the Spring of 2020. They came about from testing how watercolour responds to a layering of colour and content, and how by rotating the image while working I can establish a variation of marks and movement. The abstracted images reference organic shapes, but also bodies in imagined landscapes.

About the artist:

Born 1976 California, Alexis Teplin lives and works in London. Graduated from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and Art Center College of Design, Pasadena.

In Teplin’s work issues of translation, quotation and female presence are shaped into layered installations of painting, sculpture and performance. She uses various forms of abstraction to create a language that obscures itself while simultaneously relating to specific art historical movements and their social context.

Teplin’s paintings focus on colour and materiality as a way to engage a repetition of gesture and the physicality of an implied body. Her performative installations bring together architectural intervention with art historical, literary, film references and archival research. Through sewn works, painted costumes and sculptures reminiscent of domestic space, Teplin situates conversations surrounding labour, collaboration and positions of decadence.

Selected solo exhibitions include It’s My Pleasure to Participate, Bluecoat, Liverpool (2019/20); Painted Costumes, NewArtCenter, Roche Court, East Winterslow (2019); Drag, Push, HOOT, Mary Mary, Glasgow (2016); HE and HO for O, Rise Projects, London (2016); San Marino Calling, Museo D’Arte Modena e Contemporanea, San Marino (2014); La Grotto Rosa, Cardrde, Bologna (2014); sss T !!, Hayward Project Space, London (2013); Progress, PLEAS, Hotel, London (2012); The Party, Park Nights, Serpentine Gallery, SANAA Pavilion, London (2009); and Can You Hear the Sea?, Blanket Gallery, Vancouver (2009). Selected group exhibitions include Nasty Women, Gavlak, Los Angeles (2020); Bauhaus 100, Camberwell School of the Arts (2019); The Most Real Thing, contemporary textiles and sculpture, NewArtCenter, Roche Court, East Winterslow (2018); Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018); Arch (The Politics of Fragmentation), Sydney Biennale (2016); Painting the Sky Blue, Mallorca Landings, Palma (2015); A Merman I Should Turn To Be, Laura Bartlett, London (2014); and Los Angeles, Sacre 101 – An exhibition based on the Rite of Spring, Migros Museum, Zurich (2014).

Fellowships include Starr Scholar at the Royal Academy (2003). Residencies include Museo d’Arte Modena e Contemporanea, San Marino (2014); and Andrax CCA, Majorca (2011).