Tesa Morin
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Borderlands Influences

Welcome! 
On this page you will find a collection of other people's works that influenced this series.

This song gets in my head frequently when drawing lines across the skies. It also makes me think of Space Force and the next frontier. I wonder what sky or space ownership looks like?
I use this hashtag on IG frequently when this song is in my head. I grew up with the old country twang version, but love this one by the amazing Ella Fitzgerald.

"Walls offer the promise of absolute protection, but they almost always fail to deliver.  Still, we build them again and again."  (Markham, 70)
Magazine Article: If These Walls Could Talk, by Lauren Markham

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The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration Along the U.S.-Mexico Border by Robert Lee Maril
Texas Tech University Press, 2012

"A fundamental issue that Mexican officials have emphasized for decades is only beginning to be addressed by this country: there would be no illegal drug trade if Americans did not demand and pay for drugs. Public funds for the treatment of drug addiction as a public health issue have been scarce in proportion to law enforcement and security measures. A public policy decision that forced judges to hand out mandated sentences to drug users has resulted in our nation's expanding prison population, now the largest in the world in proportion to our national population. It has, at the same time, forced the construction of new and costly prisons throughout the nation."  (Maril, 289)


the photographs of Julieanne kost
She is Principal Digital Imaging Evangelist for Adobe. I'm inspired by her passenger seat and aerial photographs series. Seeing her work made me use my passenger seat time more creatively.

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Escorial
Carmen Herrera
1974

Balance, clean lines, and wry humor.
From this article on Herrera by Claire Messud: "Escorial (1974) is Herrera’s response to San Lorenzo del Escorial, the sixteenth-century Spanish royal monastery and palace, of which she explains: 'It was a garbage dump and now it’s a royal palace. And even more fun, El Escorial was designed as a symbol of Saint Lawrence, who was barbecued…and this is a grill.'"
Found in the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC.

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Interior (Innenraum)
Anselm Kiefer
1981

I'm a huge fan of Kiefer's work - the color, the scale, the presence. This one is even better with the little boundary in front. Found at Centre Pompidou in Paris.

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The Four Blues
Robert Irwin
1961

I read Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Over Thirty Years of Conversations with Robert Irwin by Lawrence Weschler at the suggestion of a friend. I think of his line work and experiements with vision as I draw my lines. Found at the SFMOMA.

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Luxembourg Gardens
Brassaï
1935-38

I've visited these gardens and my memories only include the vastness of the area, happy families, and the winter sunshine. I love how ​Brassaï shows us this barrier instead.  Found at the SFMOMA.


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Miss Gardenia
Meret Oppenheim
1962

Surrealist work does a great job of pulling the viewer in and setting up expectations, only to give a twist or surprise. This piece attracts and repulses at the same time - something I like my work to do. Found at the SFMOMA.
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Open No. 12 in Raw Sienna with Gray
Robert Motherwell
1968

From the title card: "For the artist, the rectangles referenced widows and doors, suggesting both unbounded space and enclosure."  Found at the Delaware Museum of Art.

All photos in this section were taken by me on my travels.
© 2020 Tesa Morin.  All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • Painting
    • Borders/Boundaries, 2018-20
    • Traveling Through Climate Change, 2016-17
    • Older Work, 2010-14
  • Photography
    • Borders/Boundaries Photographs, 2018-20
    • Hands Series: Mannequin
    • Portrait Photography
  • Fabric
  • Video
  • Blog
  • About