Therese Zemlin’s Dressed/Undressed is a sculptural diptych on duality and sexuality produced with paper made during her Workspace residency. The artist, whose career in paper art spans over thirty years, considers the material a “chameleon” that has allowed her works to embody a vast metaphoric language. Her sculptures seem to take on the shapes of enlarged seeds and plants, yet their self-contained forms are also influenced by mid-twentieth century military machinery and armaments. These are a natural outgrowth of an interest in mixing the organic and the mechanical. In addition, the accordion-like works adapted from Japanese Gifu paper lanterns have a pop, design, and fashion appeal.
Working in the studio, Therese used mesh and steel armatures in her work, onto which she applied paper pulp. She adapted a traditional Asian lamp-making technique to design her own armatures as can be seen in Transformer. She then laminated cast handmade paper sheets onto the unique shapes, creating the flexible parts of the sculptures.
Therese Zemlin received a BFA in Sculpture from University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Texas, Austin.
Workspace Program artist-in-residence 1995
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