Tess Sheerin interview
HUCK meets the ocean-inspired artist who is giving broken surfboards a new lease of life.
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“I have always loved painting women as I really admire the female form. I wanted to do something with a mermaid because they are gorgeous but obviously I didn’t want to keep doing the same sort of creatures [as everyone else],” says artist Tess Sheerin about her latest work, Sea School, a series of broken surfboards feature a fresh take on the mermaid mythology. “The first I made was ‘Sexy Fish Lady’ then an octopus came next.”
The mermaid myth has enchanted and inspired many for millennia and has traditionally been imagined in art as a hybrid of woman and fish. However, Sheerin has reimagined this elegant female fusion with seahorses, turtles and octopi. But the creation of these pieces all happened by chance while this New Zealand expat was visiting the artistic hub of St Ives, Cornwall in the summer of 2010.
“I ended up coming across a real old Mal surfboard just thrown out by a rubbish tip there. I just thought it was amazing. I came across these local guys that had an old farm and were doing it up into secret art studios so I ended up painting that surfboard in there,” she explains in her Antipodean inflection. “After I did one, I got a bit addicted. I started going around to all the surfboard shapers and showing them the piece that I made. Then I ended up getting about five different pieces from them and, yeah, sort of went crazy.”
The Sea School series was the result of this, a collection that has been exhibited in various shows across the UK throughout 2011, with the final appearance taking place at Graffik Gallery in London's Notting Hill in November 2011. But the series all come with their own unique style, created using a variety of techniques that adds to their dynamic nature. “I never stay stagnant with art. I absolutely love trying out new mediums and new techniques and just watching what happens,” says Sheerin who readily uses paint, charcoal, sculpture and ink all together. “And if I'm using paint, then I like to get, well, not violent but messy with it, throwing it around.”
Sheerin's passion for art traces back to her as an 11-year-old girl, drawing portraits of Leonardo di Caprio from her home near Christchurch. This hobby soon developed into a vocation with her going on to study printmaking, design and painting. But while on an art scholarship four years ago, she found the traditionally-focused scene of her homeland restrictive and relocated to the UK. Says Sheerin: “There’s not really an urban art scene or street art culture in New Zealand. There was a Banksy show in Nelson last month actually. But, to date, that’s the biggest thing that’s happened in New Zealand in regards to urban art, street art and graffiti art. I think a lot of people have to go to the big cities to get that like New York, London and Berlin.”
But despite this fondness for the urban art scene, nature is very much her muse, reinforced by her love of surfing and snowboarding. With that also regularly appears in her work, meaning that a nomadic existence helps maintain a balance. “I guess that’s why the travelling thing works quite well. I seem to feel a bit more clear headed in the countryside and I like that it’s not so fast paced. But then, if I’m not doing an art project or something that I’m totally obsessed with, then I definitely need to get my city fix!”
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Tess Sheerin interview (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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