Visual Presentation & Conversation

Tula Telfair grew up on four continents spending most of her early childhood in the rainforests of Gabon with the Fang and Pigmy peoples — where weather and nature were impossible to ignore.

Come for a lively visual presentation and conversation with Tula – as she shares her inspirations and process with images and videos. You will enter and move through her studio, watch her paint, and walk across the landscapes of Africa and Iceland that have inspired her recent work. She will share the evolution of her work from early drawings of gorillas to her recent expansive oil paintings. Tula paints monumental landscapes and employs varied painterly techniques to create epic-scale vistas that are simultaneously awe-inspiring and intimate, invented and familiar. In her recent work, each painting is inspired by a location in the world where rapid changes can be observed over a brief period of time. Her interest in color and the materiality of oil paint excites the surfaces of her works and remind us that paint comes directly from minerals and chemicals in the earth. Tula’s images are made from memory and invention and call attention to the power and fragility of both ourselves and our environment.

Before the program, see her exhibition, TULA TELFAIR: N A T U R E does not locate itself.

Support for the exhibition is generously provided by Melanie and Alan Levitan. Exhibition installation support provided by Novartis.

About the Artist

Tula Telfair is a Professor of Art and the Director of the Studio Art Program in the Department of Art and Art History at Wesleyan University. She is also a Professor of A Professor of Environmental Studies in the College of the Environment at Wesleyan University. Tula is represented by Forum Gallery in New York City.

Photo Caption: Photo by Petiote Photography.