Artist Statement
Capturing abstraction in nature, both physical and atmospheric, is the essence of my work. I search for moments when the natural world appears changed, distilled down to color, form and light. I invite the viewer to experience the same sense of discovery.
Bio
Tess Atkinson is an English born artist now living in Boston, Massachusetts. Her work centers on nature, most specifically when nature takes on a subtle abstraction. In the spring of 2011 Tess began her longest running series, her Flora series, which centers on capturing the fragile and temporary beauty of cherry blossoms and dogwood trees. Tess has been returning over time and seasons to a particular dogwood tree in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for which she has created a series of studies. Trees bear witness to many transitory moments and continue their own tale through time. Her images express the beauty and transient quality of these ephemeral moments for this singular tree. Trees are forever changing and desperately fragile. Tess strives to show their unfolding beauty and draw attention to this fragility and need for preservation.
Tess also focuses her attention on seascapes and landscapes which she calls Lightscapes. She studied art history in college and worked for a decade at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Tess currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Her art history studies and work in museums deeply influence her photography. Her Lightscape series found its inspiration in the work of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the 19th century painter, who was born in Massachusetts but worked for many years in England. While working in London starting in the 1860s, Whistler painted scenes on the Thames at night. He called these paintings, Nocturnes, originally a musical term but one he used to represent “a dreamy, pensive mood.” It is specifically Whistler’s Nocturne, “Blue and Silver: Battersea Reach,” about 1872-1878, in the collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that inspired Tess’s Lightscapes. Her goal is to convey this dream-like, painterly quality in her Lightscapes. Tess has traveled to many countries seeking these dreamy scenes where colors appear to wash over the photograph.
Tess Atkinson’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and has been featured in the Boston Globe and Boston Voyager Magazine.
Follow Tess on Instagram @tessatkinsonstudio for updates on shows and current work.
Artist Representation
Jules Place Gallery, 1200 Washington Street #204, Boston, MA
Shows and Featured Work
2022 Featured in Beacon Hill Hotel, Boston, MA
2022 Featured in Nina Farmer Interiors Installation for Design on a Dime Benefit at Metropolitan Pavilion, NYC
2019 Featured in Boston Voyager Magazine
2018 Collaboration with My Domus Aurea
2018 SMFA Art Sale, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2018 Artrageous! 32, Juried Art Auction for Montserrat College, Beverly, MA
2018 ARTcetera, Juried ART Exhibition and Auction, Boston, MA
2017 Bountiful! Group Exhibition at Jules Place Gallery, Boston, MA
2016 “Webster Art Project” Group Exhibition at Webster & Co., Boston, MA
2016 Blink 2016, Group pop-up photography exhibition, Somerville, MA
2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Summer Party Juried Silent Art Auction featuring emerging and established artists, Boston, MA
2016 “Party at iartcolony” Group Exhibition at iartcolony gallery in Rockport, MA (October 2015 - June 2016)
2016 Artrageous, Juried Art Auction for Montserrat College and preview exhibition, Naga Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 “Amboseli, Quiet Plains” Solo Exhibition at Lab Central, Cambridge, MA
2015 SMFA Art Sale, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2015 ARTcetera, Juried ART Auction, Boston, MA
2015 Nichols House Museum Spring Fete, Boston, MA
2014 Looking Out, Sharon Arts Exhibition Gallery, Peterborough, NH
2014 Blink 2014, Group pop-up photography exhibition, Somerville, MA
2014 WGBH Fine Art Auction, Boston, MA
2014 Nichols House Museum Spring Fete, Boston, MA
2014 Samson Projects, Boston, MA
2014 SMFA Art Sale, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2013 Nichols House Museum Spring Fete, Boston, MA
2013 ARTcetera, Boston, MA
2013 SMFA Art Sale, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2012 Nichols House Museum Spring Fete, Boston, MA
2012 SMFA Art Sale, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2011 ARTcetera, Boston, MA
2011 Affairs of the Art Exhibition, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2011 SMFA Art Sale, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA