Marcia Teusink is an American visual artist based in London, whose practice explores climate change, collapsing environments and regrowth. Her recent projects explore the colonial history of the movement of plants around the globe and the unintended consequences of this displacement through painting, installation, video and mixed media.

Botanical stories

Much of Marcia Teusink’s work is a response to specific stories. One, for example is the British obsession with red dye from the cochineal bug. This bug was cultivated on the prickly pear cactus in Mexico and there, they used it to make their redcoat military uniforms. Another, is the ‘discovery’ of the Amorphophallus Titanum plant, which made one Italian botanist a celebrity and is now the prize of many a botanical garden. Then, there is the invasion (and possible phytoremediation) by the acacia plant of a post-industrial site near Lisbon.

Fear about biodiversity loss

Combining and transforming imagery from historic engravings, maps and photographs, through painting and other materials, Teusink works through her own confusion and fear about biodiversity loss and attempts to give space to the many players, human and non-human, in these convoluted and still-evolving stories.

Marcia Teusink recently turned a residency at Brisons Veor, in Cornwall, into a research trip to many historic botanical gardens in Cornwall, where she looked at trees extracted from the west coast of America that are thriving in the UK.

Marcia Teusink – more about the artist

Marcia Teusink has exhibited in the UK, the USA and Europe, including recent exhibitions at 195 Mare Street (London), Territory Expo (Barreiro, Portugal), Rome Botanical Gardens (Italy), and a commissioned installation at Dawe’s Twineworks for the Od Arts Festival (West Coker, Somerset). She frequently collaborates with other artists, including an ongoing collaboration with London-based Ground Collective, with artist Tanya Gill (Chicago, USA) and the international group The Prezent, which has exhibited its project ‘Looted’ Galeria Prodbrzezie at The Pedogogical University in Krakow (Poland) and at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco in the autumn of 2024. Teusink has attended artists residencies at Kala Art Institute (CA, USA), The Studios at MASSMoCA (MA, USA), PADA Studios/SLUICE (Barreiro, Portugal), Unit 1 Gallery-Workshop (London) and Brisons Veor (Cornwall, UK). She is a student of Rosenclaire (Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky) who have been her mentors for several decades.