The paintings beckon the viewer to step over low stone fences into lush meadows, to feel the texture of ancient stucco walls and layers of paint on wooden shutters, to see the reflections of light and shadow in the windows, to peer inside the French blue door. There are enough tangible, realistic elements to make people comfortable, and enough quirks in the way I put images together to make the scenes a bit provocative. Viewers have to perform what I call 'visual gymnastics' to determine where they are in that space. With the sensibility of a designer or builder, Tessem imposes an order on her paintings. She offers a combination of perspectives that recall the technique of Renaissance painters.
Architectural elements serve as focal points in the natural world.
Windows and doors reflect or look through the landscape that softens into shadows. This collection of eighteen paintings and twelve pastel drawings, progeny of her travels through southern France and Italy last fall, represents a shift in Tessem's artistic approach. To capture the European landscapes, she chose a completely different palette from the green and pink pastels of her imagined Eastern Shore scenes. And instead of summoning from her subconscious the images and vistas she wanted to capture on canvas, Tessem has grounded this collection in reality, working from photographs of places she visited and architectural details that caught her attention. Some images also capture the landscapes Tessem saw during her drive with the Days through the Piedmont to Venice.