Marcia Teusink
Plants have always been on the move, their seeds being carried by wind and birds, mammals and human beings, but the pace of these relocations sped up drastically when European colonial plant hunters began to circumnavigate the globe, seizing plant specimens to carry home and to show off for study, profit and sometimes fame. Some plants fit in quietly in their new homes, some needed highly artificial environments to survive, and some spread rapidly and threatened the stability of their new ecosystems.
My work often responds to specific plant stories, for example the British obsession with red dye from the cochineal bug, which was cultivated on the prickly pear cactus in Mexico, for their military uniforms; the ‘discovery’ of the Amorphophallus Titanum plant, which made one Italian botanist a celebrity and which is now the prize of many a botanical garden; and the invasion (and possible phytoremediation) by the acacia plant of a post-industrial site outside of Lisbon.
I combine and transform imagery from historic engravings, maps and photographs in painting and other materials as a way of working through my own confusion and fear about biodiversity loss and providing space to the many players, human and non-human, in these convoluted and still-evolving stories.
SOLO/2-3 PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2023 EN TIBI: Here for You a Smiling Garden of Everlasting Flowers, curated by Guido Rebecchini, Rome Botanical Gardens Museum, Rome, Italy - solo
2023 A Botanical Cabinet, 195 Mare Street, London (with Milena Michalski & Tulika Ladsariya)
2022 Trying to Save the World Through Alchemical Love, InTheWindow Installation at Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent - solo
2020 Fallibility Cabinet, TODGallery, Sevenoaks - solo
2020 Isolation, Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery (online) (with Eithne Jordan & Masani Landfair)
2018 Surface Tension, The Stone Space, Leytonstone (with Andy D’Cruz & Sam Hodge)
2016 Recent Work, Voxel Gallery (online exhibition) - solo
2016 Intertidal, Whitstable Biennale Satellite Programme, Methodist Church Hall, Whitstable (with Fiona Fouhy & Catherine Jacobs)
2014 Transformations, Saint Barnabas Church, London (with Fiona Fouhy & Catherine Jacobs)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Lido Open, curated by Vincent Hawkins, The Lido Stores, Margate (upcoming)
2024 Spectrum, an Artists’ Support Pledge exhibition by White Noise Projects & Matthew Burroughs, One Paved Court, Richmond (upcoming)
2024 50/50, curated by Stacie McCormick, Unit 1 Gallery, London
2024 It Rose and It Fell, curated by Karl Bielik, Terrace Gallery, London
2024 England is a Forest, Small Works Art Gallery for Sluice [Vernacular], Colchester, Essex
2024 Seeing Red/CAS Open, Chapel Arts Studios, Andover
2024 Translocation/Dislocation, Collect Connect (online collaborative exhibition)
2024 In Search of Some Phantom, curated by International Body of Art, Crypt Gallery, London
2024 Tiny Plants, Frontier Gallery, Sheffield
2023 The London Group Open, Copeland Park Gallery, London
2023 Uncertain Edges, with Groundwork Collective, Electro Studios, St. Leonards-on-Sea
2023 Eleven Twenty-Three, curated by Elena Unger & Heidi Pearce, St Bartholomew the Great, London
2023 This Year’s Model Part I, Studio1.1 Gallery, London
2022 Ruins of Time, London-Munich Exchange Project, St Augustine’s Tower, London
2022 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, selected by Alison Wilder RA, London
2022 This Year’s Model Part III, Studio1.1 Gallery, London
2022 Radical Residency VII Exhibition, Unit 1 Gallery, London
2022 Territory/Território, Lisbon Art Weekend, Sluice/PADA Studios, Barriera, Portugal
2022 Painting Open 2022, no format gallery, London
2022 Festival of Print, East London Printmakers, Mile End Pavilion, London
2021 Groundwork, curated by Matthew Swift, APT Gallery, Deptford, London
2021 This Year’s Model Part III, Studio1.1 Gallery, London
2021 Contemporary Landscape, Frontier Gallery, Sheffield
2021 Figurative Art Now, Mall Galleries, London (online)
2021 East London Printmakers Annual Exhibition, Mile End Pavilion, London
2020 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London (online)
2020 ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London (online)
2019 Past and Present Tense, White Noise Projects, Crypt Gallery, London
2019 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London
2017 White Noise Projects, Crypt Gallery, London
2017 Dover PrintFest, Dover Arts Collective, Dover
2017 All Inked Up, University of Canterbury, Kent
2016 GRIT, curated by Jane Boyer, Arthouse1 Gallery, London
2016 On Color, curated by Catherine Healy, Pushdot Studios, Portland, OR, USA
2015 Memory as a Creative Act, curated by Elise Schonhowd, Oppland Kunstenter, Lillehammer, Norway
2015 Zeitgeist Art Project Summer Exhibition, Bond House Gallery, London
COLLAB/COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS
2024 Looted, a video installation by the Prezent group, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA (upcoming)
2023 Utracone (Looted), a video installation by the Prezent group, led by Dorota Mytych (including Jessica Houston, Tracy Grubbs and Marcia Teusink), Galeria Podbrzezie, Pedagogical University, Krakow, Poland
2021 Towards a Global Village, a video and installation created with Tanya Gill, exhibition curated by Nirmal Raja, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee, WI, USA
COMMISSIONS
2023 Flo(ra)tilla: A Natural and Not-So-Natural History, large-scale mixed media installation with video at Dawe’s Twineworks for Od Arts Festival. Curated and commissioned by Simon Lee Dicker and Cat Bagg, OSR Projects, West Coker, Somerset
SCREENINGS
2024 Uncertain Edges video included in Artists Films: Human Outlooks on Precarious Coastal Lands, curated by Claudia Kappenberg, in conjunction with Emma Stibbons exhibition, Towner Eastbourne, Sussex
RESIDENCIES
2024 Artists Residency, Brisons Veor Trust, Cape Cornwall, UK
2024 Artists Residency, with artist-team Rosenclaire, Poppiano, Italy
2022 Territory/Território Residency, Sluice/PADA Studios, Barriero, Portugal
2022 Radical Residency VII, Unit 1 Gallery-Workshop, London
2021 The Studios at MASS MoCA Residency, North Adams, MA, USA
2020 Groundwork Incubator Residency, APT Gallery, London
2018 Artists’ Residency, with artist-team Rosenclaire, Poppiano, Italy
2015 Kala Artist Residency, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA
2013 Morris Graves Foundation Solo Residency, Loleta, CA, uSA
2010 Just Painting Residency, Rosenclaire, La Cipressaia, Montagnana, Italy
2009 Artist’s Residency, Lesheba Center for Indigenous Knowledge, Limpopo, South Africa
2007 Contemporary Issues in Art Residency, La Cipressaia, Montagnana, Italy
2007 Domestic Departures Collab Residency, Cal State Fullerton, Santa Ana, CA, USA
BURSARIES/PRIZES
2022 a-n Time Space Money Bursary
2022 Jacksons Painting Prize longlist
PUBLICATIONS
‘Conquering Nature’, by Johnny Roberts, Sluice Magazine, Autumn 2023
‘Step inside this house’, by Sappho Lauder, Love Hackney, 17 September 2023
EDUCATION
Ongoing - Mentorship by the artist-team Rosenclaire (Claire Gavronsky & Rose Shakinovsky), who are based in Poppiano, Italy
2011 Institute of Education, University College London, MA Museum & Gallery Education
1997 City University of New York, Queens College, MFA Visual Arts, Honours
1993 University of California at Berkeley, BA English Literature, Summa Cum Laude
1992 Scuola Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence, Italy, Studio Art & Art History
