Laurel Terlesky is an interdisciplinary Canadian artist. She holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in International Creative Practice from Transart Institute (New York / Berlin), accredited by Plymouth University (UK) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Victoria (Canada). Her works have been experienced internationally on-screen — television, large-scale projection, the internet — and in exhibitions.
She has been awarded residencies in Spain, Germany, Greece, Thailand, U.S.A and across Canada. Her work has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, B.C. Arts Council and various local community initiatives.
Terlesky’s work examines the use of technology to communicate and for building relationships. She explores what is often left out: tacit recognition and implicit awareness through a physical encounter: visual, touched and sensed.
Through installations that include touch-activated audio and motion-triggered lights, objects and drawings, Terlesky’s practice acknowledges the permeable boundary of our skin and the careful exchange between interior and exterior awareness that happens during tactile encounters. These are leaky places where we become unbodied, begging questions about the nature of embodiment.
How are memories stored in our flesh? Why do they become unleashed upon an encounter of touch? How does the body mediate our past/future and remain present?
Terlesky’s process aims to bridge gaps, lessen disconnections, grey out false dualisms and repair places of missed, and perhaps misused, communication.
Photo captured by Andrea Helleman (Maven)