Teresa Wells, ARBS

Teresa Wells grew up as the eldest of six to Catholic parents in Bradford, West Yorkshire. After giving up hope of producing a son, her engineer father began to encourage Teresa to access his workshop and bought her tools for birthday presents. With an interest in reading everything and a love of drawing, she grew up knowing that she wanted to be an artist. When she became a parent to a child with a life threatening heart condition she did just that, life had suddenly become too short and opportunities needed to be grasped!

Teresa received a first class BA degree from Nottingham Trent University and undertook postgraduate studies at Loughborough University, where her tutors included John Atkins and Dan Archer. Teresa currently maintains a working practice at ‘The Grid Studios’ Warwickshire; she is a prolific sculptor who also uses drawing in her installation work. Furthermore, she is committed to a rigorous work schedule.

Inspired by her moral upbringing and an interest in human tales both of adversity and endurance, she uses the metaphorical language of materials as symbolic representations of her thoughts. Wooden constructions interplay with delicate threads and layered fabric to convey man’s tenuous adherence to frameworks.

Teresa’s work is made to reflect the consciousness of all humans regardless of nationality. Her use of text illustrates her intrigue with human stories. Clippings extracted from newspapers gathered on her recent travels to China, North America, South Africa, Malaysia, and Italy, are incorporated into patchworks made from hand stitched muslin pieces containing drawings of the human form.

“Rational Voices in an Irrational World” (2009, 2m H x 1m W x 4m W), denotes Teresa’s preferred scale of working. “When you are influenced by reading about the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe (2008), whilst travelling and seeing the poverty in South Africa, the impact of the stories and images needs to be expressed using scale. Using a series of frames big enough to accommodate the viewer means the audience can empathise with the experiences of the figures within”.
 

For details of where Teresa is exhibiting her work, please see the events page.