Inspired by the complexity of human interaction with the world THERESA HANDY creates irregularly shaped multiple panel paintings that evoke a sense of longing and nostalgia about memory and place. HANDY photographs source images in her own surroundings – shooting digital pictures of urban and rural landscapes, and people engaged in everyday activity. She then fixes select photos onto wood panels and paints directly over the digital prints to alter the appearance of each image. A number of contradictory things happen at once, all within a relatively reduced palette.

What HANDY possesses in abundance is an original sense of balance. The paintings, comprised of collective loose and fragmented narratives still maintain a sturdy character. Blocks of image and color are moved around and built upon one another, directly abutting, sometimes separated by strips or beams of paintings. The result is a total painting not unlike an enormous montage, sectioned out, cut, and reassembled. Every image sits separate, yet each implies some idea of overlapping. There is a resonance that rings of Cubist works in the compositions and juxtapositions.

HANDY’S abstractions are sufficiently referential so that it is commonplace to see them as suffused with a special light, dense with allusions to sky, water, sun, bleached architecture, sharp shadows and angular illuminations, often haunted by human presences. The discrete images collectively exist as a memorial reflecting HANDY’S recollection and experience with the environment, and a testimonial to her experience on Earth and her struggle to reconcile and find balance with the world around her.

THERESA HANDY is a 1995 BFA graduate from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She has been a recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, the Jerome Fellowship and a semi finalist on numerous occasions for the McKnight Fellowship. HANDY has been featured in many publications, her work resides in corporate and private collections, and she has an extensive exhibition record.