Artist Statement

I am a mixed-media artist using printmaking, drawing, collage, and ceramics to explore the delicate terrain of remembering, repairing, and memorializing longings and loss. I investigate the inevitable imprints they leave on the psyche and the fragile yet tenacious body.

Across media, I try to create a tactile, visceral quality that elicits an emotional response and holds viewers to engage with the narrative. The work on paper utilizes layered and altered prints (woodblock and drypoint), drawing, sewing, and collage. My ceramic sculptures are woven forms of paper-coated wire dipped in clay slip and finished with raw glaze materials. I also make traditional hand-built forms. 

My observations of complex family stories and societal shifts take form as abstract emotional landscapes expressed through a visual language of line, pattern, flora, place, and form.  My vocabulary draws from aerial-view maps, anatomical illustrations, Catholic rituals, and intricate knots and weavings of various kinds – in particular, those used by weaver birds to craft their protective nests, boating knots used by sailors for safety, and rituals performed for comfort. My intention is to create a metaphorical journey of both the living and the deceased by tending to, protecting, and materializing these memories – finding beauty in all of their difficulty.  

Bio

Born in Albany, New York, Therese Tripoli spent most of her career in Chicago and Brooklyn before returning to the Hudson Valley where she now lives and works. She received her B.F.A. from Syracuse University in studio art and art history, and completed graduate coursework in ceramics at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Tripoli is a mixed-media artist using printmaking, drawing, collage, and ceramics to explore the delicate terrain of remembering, repairing, and memorializing longings and loss. She investigates the inevitable imprints they leave on the psyche and the fragile yet tenacious body.

She worked in art administrative capacities for The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, MTA Arts and Design and the New York City office of Franz Mayer of Munich on permanent installations in the New York City Subways and other settings with artists including Diana Al-Hadid, Firelei Báez, Kathryn Bradford, Nick Cave, Ann Hamilton, Shazia Sikander and Kiki Smith.

Earlier in her career, Tripoli honed her craft as a resident and studio assistant at Moravian Pottery and Tile Works and at L’esperance Tile Works, studios focused on the production and preservation of handmade ceramic tile. She then went on to design and make her own line of handmade tile for home installation.

She continued to develop her practice while working in the arts and pivoted to full time studio work in 2022. Tripoli has exhibited at Kunstraum Gallery and Jason McCoy Gallery in New York City and the NCECA Clay National Exhibition. Since moving to the Hudson Valley, she has participated in Art Walk Kingston sponsored by Arts Mid-Hudson. Her work will be included in Upstate Art Open Studios in conjunction with Upstate Art Weekend 2025 with artist Nancy Goldenberg.