Nature, Nudes and Spirituality

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Corri-Lynn Tetz, “Sjalso Witch,” 2016

oil on canvas, 30” x 16”

Corri-Lynn Tetz offers art made  in three countries in Diviners, a Calgary exhibition that brings together nature, nudes and spiritual communion in washed-out oil paintings that suggest both ethereal mysticism and embodied reality. Tetz completed the works on display at the Jarvis Hall Gallery until April 13 during two recent residencies – one on the Swedish island of Gotland and the other in Vermont – as well as at home in Montreal, where she has lived for the last 12 years. The naked body – both male and female – features prominently in much of her recent work. Although executed in a sketchy style, her nudes have a gestural surety that traces back to her interest in realism as a young art student in Red Deer, Alta. She ventured through abstraction, then back to the figure as she started to explore spirituality as a theme in her artwork during graduate school at Concordia University, where she earned a Master’s degree in 2015. Tetz, raised in an evangelical Christian tradition she ultimately rejected, says she is fascinated by people who seek religious experience not through concepts of God but via their own bodily experiences.

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Corri-Lynn Tetz, “Tip,” 2016

oil on canvas, 20” x 16”

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Corri-Lynn Tetz, “Ledge,” 2016

oil on canvas, 40” x 36”

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Much in her recent paintings suggests nature worship, even naturism, with young naked people wading or perched on rocky outcrops, as in her 2016 painting, Tip, which she completed in Vermont. Nudity gives the images a timeless quality, she says. “It’s not about sexuality, but about vulnerability.” Tetz, who will be part of a two-person show with Rosalind Breen in June at Winnipeg's Lisa Kehler Art + Projects, is vague about her process, saying she no longer plots out each move and has adopted a more intuitive approach. The excitement comes, she says, when she relinquishes control. “I’ll look at a painting, sometimes, that I’ve done, and I’ll be like: ‘How did I do that?’”