Lindsey Teague is an artist who is inspired by Knoxville: “I live on Gay Street so I walk downtown all the time and notice the smell of the local business and the lights when the sun’s setting – all the things that make the city what it is – I like to capture that scene.”
Though our Featured Artist for December isn’t a native of the city, she says she has a deep seated love of the area that began while she studied at UT, “I’ve lived here for 10 years, I’m from West Tennessee, but I love Knoxville. It’s cool to be local now, and I love that – people appreciate their city and find value in it.”
Though Lindsey’s art is drawn from a variety of inspirations, it’s hardly surprising that, more often than not, she’s drawn to subjects that have historic and local value. In fact, one of her most popular subjects is an icon not only for the city, but for the State of Tennessee too: “There’s one scene that I’ve worked on from the very beginning, though it’s the same image I like to change the composition. It’s the Tennessee Theatre.
“I’ve noticed that people are drawn to things that say what they are. I have a Sunsphere piece that says Knox; people are drawn to the words as well as the image. Maybe it’s because that you know it’s an image of your home town but when someone else sees it, they know it’s from your home town, too.”
Teague’s medium lends itself to permutation. She starts with a photograph, then prints it on wood and finally adds layers of paint to create her signature style. A free-lance graphic designer by trade and training, the way she came to this technique is proof that necessity is the mother of invention.
“It’s something that I’ve picked up in the last 3 years, and it happened by accident. A friend, Kelly Absher, asked me to do an exhibit for Central Flats and Taps for a First Friday – they had an artist back out. So I did some photography. He asked me to do it again the next year in the same spot, but I wanted to do something different. Something with my photographs but with more of a fine art application. So I was playing around with different mediums and techniques to develop a vintage rustic style that I liked. And I thought printing on wood was cool; and so I developed my pictures into vector images and printed them on the board. Once I got to that step I started playing with painting them to add some color back to them.”
The resulting pieces are certainly familiar, and while Lindsey adds dimension and a separate personality to each that distinguish her vision, it’s never at the expense of the subject itself. Nevertheless, sometimes, she says, the materials take over and speak for themselves: “The paint will go on one color and dry another. There’s one board of the Tennessee Theatre that I originally wanted to be red. Red’s the trickiest. But it dried orange. I thought, well, that’s okay. It’s Knoxville.”
You can see Lindsey’s Art Boards at the Tomato Head Market Square from December 7 through January 3 and at the Gallery location from January 5th through February 1st.
