MEET

TERESA ROCHE x LIZ RUNDORFF SMITH

Teresa is a mixed-media artist working in acrylic, watercolor, and collage. With a background in dance, event management, and stage production, she approaches each fresh surface as a choreographer. With a blank stage and the pieces and parts in place, gestural movements are tweaked and changed until the work is complete. In building layers of paint and then scratching and sanding back into it, Teresa's mixed-media works are excavations—an unearthing of the past, which is then transformed into a new, abstracted story. 

Liz elevates the mundane, mimicking the way we bring significance to loss with keepsakes and memorials. Her work evokes a sense of nostalgia and exposes the sentimentality in memory. Her color choices are tied to the decor and design trends of decades past that have become kitschy artifacts. Her use of pattern and shape reference objects that are no longer identifiable but retain familiarity. Embellishments like fringe and shiny gold finishes play into the chintzy aesthetic of souvenirs—elevating the ordinary to something celebratory.