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| TESSA FARMER |
“Remember the secret world of the child? Remember the fascination and fantasy, the
intensity of focus and the ferocity of feeling? This is the place that Tessa Farmer tries to
take you back to. She leads you past the polished surfaces of mundane perception into
miniature realms that normally might not have been noticed. Her tiny scenarios of scuttling
creatures awaken a childlike curiosity.
You peer through the apertures that she opens in the imagination. But don’t expect to
discover some lost Eden. Farmer’s microscopic creatures, intricately crafted from filaments
of tree root and fragments of dead insects, are macabre hybrids. They indulge in all sorts
of perverse antics. Behind the surfaces of natural beauty lies a savage Boschian world.
Farmer creates a reflection in miniature of our society. She shows us its fragility and its
ferocity, its poetry and its repulsion, its beauty and its brutality. Damien Hirst did something
like this with his dead animals. But if Hirst is Francis Bacon in 3-D then Farmer is probably
Albrecht Dürer. The same intense scrutiny seems to underlie the fantasies played out by
her tiny desiccated insects. The drama lies in the detail of these miniature works.”
-- Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times Newspaper
Education
2002 - 2003
Linacre College, University of Oxford
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art
MFA Fine Art
1997 - 2000
St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art
BFA Fine Art (Hons) Class I.
1996 - 1997
Bournville College of Art and Design.
BTEC Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Exhibitions
Future
2008 Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York (solo)
2008 Tatton Park Biennial
Solo Shows
2007 - 2008 Little Savages, Natural History Museum, London
2007 Infestation, Assembly:Art in the bar, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
2006 The Terror, Firstsite, Colchester
2004 New Work, Museum of Oxford
2003 Installation at the Kalmthout Arboretum, Belgium
2002 Touch Wood, Rochester Art Gallery, following Stour Valley Arts residency
1999 Untitled, Dolphin Gallery, St John’s College, Oxford
Group Shows
2007
The Future Can Wait, London
Les Fleurs du Mal, Primo Alonso, London ( curated by John Stark)
Growing Wild, Andreiana Mihail Gallery, Bucharest and Kontainer Gallery, Los Angeles (curated by Jane Neal)
Am Schlimmsten: nicht im Sommer sterben, Nassauische Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany
2006
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear, COMA, Berlin
Shibboleth, Dilston Grove, Southwark Park, London
Obsession, Sartorial Art, London
Repatriating The Ark, Museum of Garden History, London (curated by Parabola)
Miniature Worlds, Jerwood Space, London
International Arts Pestival, London Wetland Centre
New Figurative Realism, Clapham Art Gallery,London
The Mouse That Roared, Project 133, Peckham, London
Where the Wild Things Are, Blyth Gallery, London
2005
Royal British Society of Sculptors (RBS) Bursary Exhibition
The Unlimited Dream Company, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
Radar, Empire Gallery, London
Thinking the Unthinkable, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland
New Sculpture, Museum 52, Redchurch Street, London
The Young Ones, Said Business School, Oxford
2004
Forever Beautiful, Clapham Art Gallery, London
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Curve Gallery, Barbican
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, The Coach Shed, Liverpool
Il Casa delle Ombres (House of Shadows), Antiquariato di Germana Cavalli, Tuscany
2003
Ruskin MA Show
Seedy Rushes, University of Oxford Botanic Gardens
2002
Tweede Natuur, Lia Schelkens Sculpture Gallery, Antwerp
2000
Ruskin School Degree Show
Magdalen College Oxford
1999
BILDUNG, Edinburgh Festival, Chessels Gallery
Look Both Ways, Pembroke College, Oxford
The Pirye Prize exhibition (short-listed), Oxford University Press.
intensity of focus and the ferocity of feeling? This is the place that Tessa Farmer tries to
take you back to. She leads you past the polished surfaces of mundane perception into
miniature realms that normally might not have been noticed. Her tiny scenarios of scuttling
creatures awaken a childlike curiosity.
You peer through the apertures that she opens in the imagination. But don’t expect to
discover some lost Eden. Farmer’s microscopic creatures, intricately crafted from filaments
of tree root and fragments of dead insects, are macabre hybrids. They indulge in all sorts
of perverse antics. Behind the surfaces of natural beauty lies a savage Boschian world.
Farmer creates a reflection in miniature of our society. She shows us its fragility and its
ferocity, its poetry and its repulsion, its beauty and its brutality. Damien Hirst did something
like this with his dead animals. But if Hirst is Francis Bacon in 3-D then Farmer is probably
Albrecht Dürer. The same intense scrutiny seems to underlie the fantasies played out by
her tiny desiccated insects. The drama lies in the detail of these miniature works.”
-- Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times Newspaper
Education
2002 - 2003
Linacre College, University of Oxford
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art
MFA Fine Art
1997 - 2000
St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art
BFA Fine Art (Hons) Class I.
1996 - 1997
Bournville College of Art and Design.
BTEC Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
Exhibitions
Future
2008 Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York (solo)
2008 Tatton Park Biennial
Solo Shows
2007 - 2008 Little Savages, Natural History Museum, London
2007 Infestation, Assembly:Art in the bar, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
2006 The Terror, Firstsite, Colchester
2004 New Work, Museum of Oxford
2003 Installation at the Kalmthout Arboretum, Belgium
2002 Touch Wood, Rochester Art Gallery, following Stour Valley Arts residency
1999 Untitled, Dolphin Gallery, St John’s College, Oxford
Group Shows
2007
The Future Can Wait, London
Les Fleurs du Mal, Primo Alonso, London ( curated by John Stark)
Growing Wild, Andreiana Mihail Gallery, Bucharest and Kontainer Gallery, Los Angeles (curated by Jane Neal)
Am Schlimmsten: nicht im Sommer sterben, Nassauische Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany
2006
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear, COMA, Berlin
Shibboleth, Dilston Grove, Southwark Park, London
Obsession, Sartorial Art, London
Repatriating The Ark, Museum of Garden History, London (curated by Parabola)
Miniature Worlds, Jerwood Space, London
International Arts Pestival, London Wetland Centre
New Figurative Realism, Clapham Art Gallery,London
The Mouse That Roared, Project 133, Peckham, London
Where the Wild Things Are, Blyth Gallery, London
2005
Royal British Society of Sculptors (RBS) Bursary Exhibition
The Unlimited Dream Company, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
Radar, Empire Gallery, London
Thinking the Unthinkable, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland
New Sculpture, Museum 52, Redchurch Street, London
The Young Ones, Said Business School, Oxford
2004
Forever Beautiful, Clapham Art Gallery, London
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Curve Gallery, Barbican
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, The Coach Shed, Liverpool
Il Casa delle Ombres (House of Shadows), Antiquariato di Germana Cavalli, Tuscany
2003
Ruskin MA Show
Seedy Rushes, University of Oxford Botanic Gardens
2002
Tweede Natuur, Lia Schelkens Sculpture Gallery, Antwerp
2000
Ruskin School Degree Show
Magdalen College Oxford
1999
BILDUNG, Edinburgh Festival, Chessels Gallery
Look Both Ways, Pembroke College, Oxford
The Pirye Prize exhibition (short-listed), Oxford University Press.
