Online Artsy Exhibitions

Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black

Teresa Getty

Online Exhibition - August 8- September 15, 2022

M.David & Co. is pleased to announce Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, an online exclusive exhibition of works on paper and sculpture by Seattle artist Teresa Getty. The show will be featured on our Artsy page from August 8th through September 15th, 2022.

The show’s name is a direct quote from legendary underground actress, female adventurer, and East Village raconteur, Cookie Mueller. Her compilation of writings serves as a diary, mapping out her singular approach through a particularly wild, Alice Wonderland-like period of time in her life. 

During the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Getty, isolated, taking care of her daughter and unable to get to her studio, began her own diary – a map of a life turned upside down. Combining ink, gouache, and text on paper, Getty worked daily on a body of work which reflected parts of her life and is highly personal and intimate. 

The scale of these miniature master works often ranges from 5 inches to 7 inches. Getty’s intimate scale and beautiful use of color, line, humor, and text in works such as She Waited Until She Couldn’t and Adult Swim, show off her ability to manifest improvisation as well as her ability as a draughtsperson. Her uncompromising honesty allows her to share stories of great poignancy, asking the viewer to confront their own interior lives by slowing down to meet her in this modest space.

Not all of Getty’s works are limited to this scale. She is currently working on large scale paintings and three-dimensional works, which are also  being featured in this online exhibition. In these sculptural works, such as Phyliss and Her Knees on my Knees Daily Tasks, she transposes the essence of her works on paper using plaster, wire, wood, and mixed media to animate and extend her diary.

Great things often come in small, quiet packages. Teresa Getty - artist, mother, wife, daughter - through the making of work rich in its intimacy, pain, and absurd yet tragic humor, reveals a will to triumph and persevere that is universal to us all.

Michael David