Tessa Dallarosa
Department of Visual Arts
Lecturer, Foundations and Art Education
Contact Information
tdallaro@uwyo.eduVA 107
she/her
Tuesdays 12:30pm-2pm, Wednesdays 11:30am-1pm
Tessa Dallarosa’s Personal WebsiteB.A., Regis University, 2005
B.F.A., University of Wyoming, 2012
M.F.A., School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2015
Tessa Dallarosa is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a BFA from the University of Wyoming, and BAs in Sociology and Philosophy from Regis University in Denver. Dallarosa has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, as well as completed residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Chautauqua School of Art. She has presented at regional and national conferences, including SECAC, the Mid America Print Council (MAPC), Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE), the National Art Education Association (NAEA), and the Wyoming Art Education Association (WYAEA). Her academic research includes place-based and rural approaches to art and education. She has also contributed to community outreach as the curator of the University of Wyoming Art Museum’s Ann Simpson Artmobile, bringing art to rural Wyoming communities. Tessa is a recipient of UW’s Promoting Intellectual Engagement (PIE) Award and a UW Honors College Teaching and Mentorship Award.
Outside of the studio, Tessa gardens as a way to stay connected to the land and the slow, rewarding work of cultivating something over time, a practice that mirrors her approach to artmaking, teaching, and learning. Tessa’s teaching philosophy is rooted in the belief that rigor and radical positivity go hand in hand. By fostering a classroom environment that encourages reflection, experimentation, humor and community, she supports students in honing their technical abilities while cultivating a deeper sense of themselves as artists.
Artist Statement
I am friend to formalism, one liners, slips of the tongue, studio accidents, failed attempts, tools, bad jokes, thrift store finds, scrap materials, making and remaking, and attention to attention. I believe we make objects like we make selves. We are shaped by the glut of things all around, the material world we care for, cull, collect, neglect, repair and sort. I am committed to the notion that making is a way of thinking, an intuitive way of being in the world and an attempt to grasp the provisional quality of meaning.
Abstraction and vernacular notions of arts-and-crafts are, for me, infinite fields of possibility. Pattern and decoration, often considered superfluous, are for me sustenance. Matching patterned fabrics with my grandmother was my entryway into painting and color systems. Loop loomed potholders, patches, doilies, doll dresses, knit socks, felt ornaments and lanyard, these domestic and childhood creations connect us to embodied knowing while complicating contemporary notions of comfort, cuteness, vulnerability and humor. Once rooted in repetitive hand processes (binding and folding, printing and pattern-making, patching and knotting) my practice has grown to include more conceptual explorations of repetition, time and context.
Repetition is both gesture and jester. Flowers portend time. Witches heal.
