mnartists.org: Tiffany Besonen

After the Snow, (Project 39: Details)

Tiffany Besonen — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:11:25 GMT

39" = 99cm, (Project 39: Details)

Tiffany Besonen — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:35:13 GMT

Project 39: Curved Pine Site

Tiffany Besonen — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:26:49 GMT

Curved Pine Detail

Tiffany Besonen — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:18:56 GMT

AMBIOTIC, nest under ironing board detail

Tiffany Besonen — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:34:02 GMT

AMBIOTIC Detail

Tiffany Besonen — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:32:32 GMT

In her first New York City solo exhibit, Minnesota sculptor Tiffany Besonen has constructed the mixed medium installation AMBIOTIC (amniotic, ambient, biological, and symbiotic), predominantly of the visceral and content rich: sewing pattern paper, beeswax, and vintage wooden ironing boards. The installation, inspired by the whole-body experience of mothering, contains a large two-panel painted collage of the poem I Am Smoke When I Can Be by poet LouAnn Shepard Muhm and a three-part sculptural construction connecting three altered wooden ironing boards with layered paper pear forms that are strung through and suspended above the ironing board forms that curve through the L-shaped gallery. Tiffany Besonen constructs installation narratives investigating motherhood, identity, Finnish heritage, aging, and family dynamics.

Ambiotic Installation

Tiffany Besonen — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:20:47 GMT

The way these pear forms, the ironing board, and the space around them relate to one another provokes questions for me about: amniotic motion, biological and symbiotic functions, and ambient space. Are these pear forms ascending or descending? Is the motion through the ironing board birthing? Or dying? As a mixed-media artist, I construct narratives about identity, biology, and family. My recent work is a series of personal metaphors for " the pear" as the mother, child, womb, and home - the empty space around them like fluid, time, or movement. When constructing these bodily narratives, I've been drawn to the visceral and content rich qualities of sewing pattern paper, beeswax, my own hair, basswood logs and vintage wooden ironing boards.

AMBIOTIC Detail

Tiffany Besonen — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:39:40 GMT

NYC SOLO EXHIBIT - AMBIOTIC, a mixed medium installation... SOHO20 Gallery, Chelsea, 511 W 25th Street, NYC, www.soho20gallery.com The way these pear forms, the ironing board, and the space around them relate to one another provokes questions for me about: amniotic motion, biological and symbiotic functions, and ambient space. Are these pear forms ascending or descending? Is the motion through the ironing board birthing? Or dying? As a mixed-media artist, I construct narratives about identity, biology, and family. My recent work is a series of personal metaphors for " the pear" as the mother, child, womb, and home - the empty space around them like fluid, time, or movement. When constructing these bodily narratives, I've been drawn to the visceral and content rich qualities of sewing pattern paper, beeswax, my own hair, basswood logs and vintage wooden ironing boards. E-mail Tiffany Besonen for more images or further information, besonens@wcta.net.

i am water

Tiffany Besonen — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 15:31:25 GMT

The collage entitled i am water is both my interpretation of the poem I Am Smoke When I Can Be by poet and fellow collaborator LouAnn Shepard Muhm, but also a narration of my own mothering. Again, pear-like forms float in slow, fluid motion, yet this time the pears are fleshy and raw. Are the sewing patterns a formula for how the fluid forms and nourishes life? Or are they simply instructions that I fail to follow? As a mixed-media artist, I construct narratives about identity, biology, and family. My recent work is a series of personal metaphors for " the pear" as the mother, child, womb, and home - the empty space around them like fluid, time, or movement. When constructing these bodily narratives, I've been drawn to the visceral and content rich qualities of sewing pattern paper, beeswax, my own hair, basswood logs and vintage wooden ironing boards. I want to use materials associated with traditional female roles, subtly calling those roles into question, without discarding the materials and traditions entirely.

Nest 2 Detail

Tiffany Besonen — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 22:04:13 GMT

Nest 2 - carved basswood, sewing pattern paper, and wax - playfully examines changes in traditions, identity, and family. The pears, my repeated metaphor for the mother, child and home, ascends from the nest form below.

Nest 2

Tiffany Besonen — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 22:02:37 GMT

Koti Installation

Tiffany Besonen — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 18:35:51 GMT

Koti, New York Mills Cultural Center Main Gallery A full-scale collaboration of my sculpture and my husband Daniel Besonen's Finnish dovetailed log structures, KOTI ("home" in Finnish) was a mixed-media installation that explores ideas of home, family and heritage.

Koti (home) Collage

Tiffany Besonen — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:19:48 GMT

This collage - sewing pattern paper, my hair, paint, sewing machined thread, drawing paper - was a study for the Koti installation. (KOTI means HOME in the Finnish language.) This work launched a new direction in exploring home and heritage in my work.

Mother Pear Installation in motion (video clip)

Tiffany Besonen — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 20:29:50 GMT

This installation at the Bemidji Art Center features the fragile, yet resilient Mother Pears in motion.

video: Mother Pear Installation

Fruit and Labor (Full View)

Tiffany Besonen — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 06:07:21 GMT

As a mixed media sculptor and storyteller, I recycle historical and found materials into three-dimensional stories about identity, motherhood and family. In collaboration with my husband Daniel Besonen's traditional Finnish logwork, our family story unfolds. We consider our collaborative work to be three-dimensional "chapters" from an epic tale about a modern Finnish-American family. These chapters feature the fragile, yet resilient pear as the mother, child and the womb - and the warm, protective log as the father and shelter. The most recent chapter, Chapter 6, is dialogue of Mother Pear and Father Log as they build a home. Each chapter explores layers of history and reality in building family and identity today.