THE INABILITY OF REASON: Gabrielle Teschner
OCTOBER 2 - NOVEMBER 13, 2015
Gabrielle Teschner - Inter Gravissimas, DAY 6 (minute) , 2013 ink on muslin 9 1/2 x 8 inches
Teschner works with muslin fabric, paint, and stitching to re-create forms that are analogous to our built environments. She explores elemental architectural components as a way of questioning the edifice of accumulated knowledge. Bricks, keystones, columns, and stairwells become themes for an examination of structural authority in both building construction and rigid ideologies. Each muslin "building block" is painted separately, then deliberately misaligned, drawing our attention to fragmentary natures otherwise perceived as whole. The objects are not only contained by the space surrounding them, but are inseparable from it. Teschner's reflection on insubstantiality, irrationality, and authority is influenced by her interest in Eastern thought, the mathematics of the ancient Greeks, and Postmodernism of the 20th century.
Included are a series of works collectively titled Inter Gravissimas, or "among the gravest". In these works she considers the nature of conventional time by depicting the historical removal of 10 days from the Gregorian calendar in 1582, during which October 4th was followed by October 15th. The series reflects on the perception that something real and tangible had been destroyed.
Teschner deliberately selected fabric for this body of work. With the pliability of cloth, these pieces speak to the value of flexibility in our ideas. Ideologies, like her stitched objects, can be taken apart and reassembled to integrate new information. In fact, any "truths" we encounter may come into question. In the artist's words, "Ultimately, I believe the source of our commitment to finding all the answers is the suspicion that the world is as mysterious as it was when we first began measuring it."
About the Artist:
Gabrielle Teschner (b.1981, Newport News, VA) received her BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2003 and her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2007. She has exhibited at Haines Gallery, John Berggruen Gallery, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Espiga Gallery in Medellin, Colombia, amongst other venues. Her work is in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, the de Young Museum, and several private collections. In 2013 she was a finalist for the Frieze Foundation's Emdash Award. Teschner currently lives and works in Napa, CA.
