Tessa Magnuson

My body of work is grounded in a play-based, process-oriented practice that prioritizes sensing and feeling over outcome.

Smaller works on paper function as daily visual inquiries, created intuitively using watercolor, ink, marker, and pen on hot-pressed paper. These pieces reflect my internal and external experiences, drawing from non-dual philosophy, classical Tantra (Kashmiri Shaivism), Tibetan Buddhism, and a deep enjoyment of Nature in all her forms. They operate as experiential explorations of sensation, emotion, perception, and conceptual processing.

The marbled paintings begin with a traditional water bath process in which ink and pigment are floated on a carrageenan-thickened surface. Water, gravity, and movement interact beyond my direct control. While I prepare materials, select colors, and set conditions, my role is that of witness rather than creator. Once the marbled print is captured on alum-treated paper, I select fragments and cut them into one-inch squares. These sections are then translated by hand into larger acrylic paintings, scaling chance-generated moments into expansive visual fields.

Across all explorations, I am interested in the amorphous boundary between doing and observing, control and surrender, artist and nature. This inquiry centers on the role of witness and the awareness that watches the witness—where intention gives way to emergence. Informed by my background in graphic design, fields of color and their edges shape bold, high-contrast compositions that engage spiritual, existential, and energetic understandings of what it means to be human.

Ultimately, I hope these works invite viewers into a softened attentiveness, offering joy, beauty, and visual pleasure as ways of sensing the complexity and playfulness of being alive.