Tessa Sutton is a visual artist and certified K-12 art teacher at The Bronx High School of Science in New York City. She has exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, most recently in Brooklyn and Minneapolis. After attending artist residencies in Italy and South Africa with mentors, rosenclaire, she received her MFA from the California College of the Arts in Painting and Drawing and a BA in History from Grinnell College, reflecting her interests in interdisciplinary studies. Tessa earned her art education credential from the College of Education, University of Iowa. She has also worked at Cooper Union, Pratt Institute and California College of the Arts in higher education arts administration and at Minneapolis College of Art and Design mentoring graduate painting students.
Tessa's work investigates themes of interconnected history, humor, transitional empires and the mystical. Painting lends itself to these concepts by recording an archaeological, tactile way of working that becomes about displacing feeling and thought over time, leaving traces.