Teresa Dunn
tdunn28@msu.edu
(517) 355-7638
315 Kresge Art Center
600 Auditorium Rd
East Lansing, MI 48824
FacultyArt, Art History, and Design
Professor
Painting
Biography
Teresa Dunn is a Mexican American artist raised in rural Southern Illinois. Her identity, life, and art are influenced by her racial and cultural heritages and the complexities of being a brown woman in the Midwest.
Teresa Dunn received her MFA from Indiana University Bloomington in 2002. She is a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Fellowship, received the Jacob K Javits Fellowship from the US Department of Education, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Winners, and recipient of the Puffin Foundation Limited Grant.
Dunn is affiliated Galerie l’Échaudé (Paris). Recent solo exhibitions venues include at Central Michigan University (2024), Buckham Gallery (2023 Michigan), First Street Gallery (2022), The Dennos Museum (2023 Michigan), University of Alabama Huntsville (2021), the Pendleton Center for the Arts (Oregon 2021); and Cover the Waterfront at the Zillman Art Museum (Maine 2020) which was reviewed in Art New England. Recent group exhibitions include at the National Arts Club (New York 2023) and The Painting Center in New York (2022). John Seed included Dunn in his publication More Disruption: Representation in Flux by Schiffer Publishing (2023). Dunn’s solo exhibition Étrange réalité at Galerie l’Échaudé (Paris 2012) was reviewed in French journals AZART and Miroir de l’Art. Dunn won Best in Show at the 2008 Biennial of Contemporary Realism at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Other notable exhibitions include the inaugural Miami University Young Painters Competition (2000). She was invited by All SHE Makes Magazine to be the featured cover artist in the inaugural issue with interview by Teri Henderson. Other publications include An Artist and a Mother (Demeter Press 2023), Friend of the Artist Magazine, and Paint Pulse Magazine. Dunn attended the Vermont Studio Center and Cuttyhunk Island Artist Residencies. She has conducted many artist lectures including at the University of Washington Seattle and the Rome Art Program in Rome, Italy.
Dunn’s work is included in collections including Central Michigan University, Paloozanoire, The Dennos Museum Center, the Zillman Art Museum, Kinsey Institute, Venice Baroque Orchestra, and Wright State University Art Galleries. Teresa Dunn is an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Michigan State University in East Lansing where she has taught since 2006.
Artist Statement
The complexities of being a brown Mexican-American from a small Midwestern town in the heartland of the USA are the formative inspirations for my recent artwork. These paintings bring voice to stories that people of color, multicultural individuals, and immigrants want to share about themselves through visually poetic constructed realities. Themes of isolation and belonging, joy and struggle, relationships and identity, and hope and hopelessness emerge in the visual storytelling. The narratives are fictive futures, potential alternate realities, speculative nonfiction, or distorted depictions of past events. What could be interpreted as nostalgia is often subverted by psychological tension built on questions of race, gender, identity, and belonging. My paintings are not didactic nor do they propose solutions for issues I consider. Instead, my artwork prioritizes experiences that represent and value Black and Brown lives.
Projects
Seed, John. More Disruption: Representation in Flux. Schiffler Publishing. Pages 188-193. 2023
false
Dunn, Teresa. An Artist and a Mother, edited by Tara Carpenter Estrada, et al., Demeter Press. Pages 167-171. March 2023.
Funded by the Laycock Foundation and the Simmons Research Endowment
Portfolio
A Long Line of Women
2022, oil on linen, 72 x 240 inches
Morgan, Megan, Claire, Leah (Long Lines of Women)
2024, oil on linen, 48 x 24 inches
El corrido de Javier Salas Vera (Alegoría de los Mojados)
2021, oil on linen, 48 x 288 inches
Curándome de lo malo por Teresita Dunn
2024, oil on linen, 36 x 20 inches Central Michigan University Permanent Collection
Media Mentions
New Multi-Sensory Exhibit at Gram Aims to Spark Conversation about Mexican-American Border
WKTV Journal
February 6, 2024