Alice Teichert is known for her abstract paintings that explore the formal qualities and suggestive potential of language. Featuring work from 1984 to 2016, Deciphertraces the artist’s longstanding interest in text, book forms and the interstices between the literary and visual arts. Residues of language recur in Teichert’s work. Abandoning the signifying function of the written word, she incorporates illegible inscriptions into her compositions. Partially formed letters and gestural notations ask us to consider language from a visual standpoint, drawing our attention to the enigmatic space between textual perception and interpretation.
Teichert also evokes language through book forms and page spreads, an interest that stems from her training in typography, poetry and musical notation. In works such as Collaboration and That’s It?, indecipherable glyphs are contextualized as lines in a book that carries an unknown meaning, an untold story. In works such as Speed of Love and Notice, successive layers of richly pigmented glazes obscure her glyphs even further. Inspired by illuminated manuscripts and stained glass windows, Teichert applies coats of translucent colour that echo the mystery and lyricism of her cryptic notations.
A multilingual artist, poet and musician, Alice Teichert was born in Paris, France and is based in Port Hope, Ontario. She has built an international career with over thirty solo exhibitions across North America, Europe and Australia. Her work is in many collections, such as the Government of Ontario, North York; the Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg; Musée de la Ville de Valence, France; and the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie.
