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As the child of an Air Force officer, Teri Kidd
spent just a short time in the city of her birth, Urbana, Illinois,
when the family was off again, moving from one end of the country
to the other and all points in between. Growing up amid the
incredible diversity of regional cultures, she learned to see
people as individuals, defined by their differences and unconsciously
used the inevitable isolation of always being “that new
kid” to develop exceptional observation skills and a keen
imagination. Her parent’s willingly indulged her passion
for the arts as she began to define herself against an ever
changing background.
Teri’s artwork reflects her design and graphic
art training and revels in Kandinsky’s theories regarding
the vibration qualities of color placement and combination.
Figurative work includes an extended series of portraits. Companions
cast light on the interplay between external and internal being
with direct and dramatic simplicity. “These portraits capture
my interpretation of the interior self’s incomparable individuality
and immense vitality as it strives to assert itself within the
human form.”
Less straightforward, her abstract work starts
with a pouring of a single color of archival ink, sealed with
acrylic to isolate it from the next pouring of ink and materials.
The isolate keeps each color clear and totally transparent,
creating complex depth and nearly 3-D visual texture where actual
physical texture may not be present at all. Most likely, orange
isn’t really orange, for example, but a complex layering
of yellows and reds. It’s not unusual for a painting to
require 40 to 60 layers before adding final images in finely
tinted acrylic glazes, airbrush, found objects and more. Each
work is virtually one of a kind and totally imaginative.
“Putting the ink down is a costly, time consuming
and painstaking process. Each pour and seal risks the whole
piece because it’s permanent, I can’t go back. I get
to know the nature of each piece so well that it gives me clues
as to how to integrate its totally unique, never-to-be-repeated
character into the final painted image.“
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