Terri Gillentine (b.1964, Muncie, Indiana) creates conceptual artworks, drawings, performances, and installations. By studying sign processes, signification, and communication Gillentine makes work that generates diverse meanings and associations. Parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, Gillentine approaches a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, involving the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical. Her works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, cliches and bad jokes.
Her works focus on the attempt of dialogue, the dissonance between form and content, and the dysfunctions of language in expressing pain. Her works can be seen as a self-portrait, idiosyncratic and quirky, contesting the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience - a grasp at language.
Terri began duration performance art centering on the body in the mid 1980s in San Francisco. While she continues to develop performance pieces, her repertoire has expanded. Themes of duration in current 2-d graphic work are still very much alive, yet mostly invisible to the viewer. The current body of flat work records impressions of sine wave patterns that morph into micro-cosmic-organisms, while documenting communication within a silent cartography of the body and the language of a cellular romance. A colorful palette memorializes visually conceptualized movements while exploring chronic pain management techniques. The work references the world of biology, microorganisms, and cellular automata – as cells have the ability to multiply in abundance, divide and merge at different paces. Pieces come together, fall apart and transform in shape as they reveal themselves onto the paper.
Terri’s works focus on the dysfunction of language. In short, the lack of clear references are key elements in the work. By investigating language on a meta-level she makes works that can be seen as self portraits . Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times they seem typical by-products of American superabundance and marketing. Terri’s artworks question the conditions of appearance of an image in the context of contemporary visual culture in which images, representations and ideas normally function.
Her works focus on the attempt of dialogue, the dissonance between form and content, and the dysfunctions of language in expressing pain. Her works can be seen as a self-portrait, idiosyncratic and quirky, contesting the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience - a grasp at language.
Terri began duration performance art centering on the body in the mid 1980s in San Francisco. While she continues to develop performance pieces, her repertoire has expanded. Themes of duration in current 2-d graphic work are still very much alive, yet mostly invisible to the viewer. The current body of flat work records impressions of sine wave patterns that morph into micro-cosmic-organisms, while documenting communication within a silent cartography of the body and the language of a cellular romance. A colorful palette memorializes visually conceptualized movements while exploring chronic pain management techniques. The work references the world of biology, microorganisms, and cellular automata – as cells have the ability to multiply in abundance, divide and merge at different paces. Pieces come together, fall apart and transform in shape as they reveal themselves onto the paper.
Terri’s works focus on the dysfunction of language. In short, the lack of clear references are key elements in the work. By investigating language on a meta-level she makes works that can be seen as self portraits . Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times they seem typical by-products of American superabundance and marketing. Terri’s artworks question the conditions of appearance of an image in the context of contemporary visual culture in which images, representations and ideas normally function.