ABOUT

Explorations of architecture, systems, and histories lie central to Iren Tete’s work. Through these she communicates various facets of her tenuous existence. Iren Tete is a woman, an immigrant, born in Bulgaria during the fall of communism to a Bulgarian mother whose land was stolen and home demolished and to a Turkish-Bulgarian father whose name was stripped and changed because of nationalism and Muslim hatred. Using language, material, and objects as tools of reclaiming self, she detangles a complex past while imagining possible futures. Universal and constant ,the fragility of time is an experience that is true and unaffected by era, geographical location, wealth, or social standing. Presenting a lens through which we might begin to understand, even accept, the magic of existing in the transitory space, the work serves as poems that question what separates reality from fantasy, dream from reality, past from present, permanence from impermanence.

Iren Tete (b.1990) is an artist originally from Sofia, Bulgaria who is currently based in Gainesville, FL. Tete is Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida and was recently Visiting Faculty in Ceramics at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Canada. She earned an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2019.

Tete has exhibited solo exhibitions at Galleri Urbane (Dallas, TX), Gallery 371 (AUArts, Calgary, Canada), and The Lee Dam Art Center for Fine Art (Marysville, KS), among others. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including shows in Nebraska, Texas, New York and Florida. In 2020, she was selected as an Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly Magazine and as a finalist for the Hopper Prize. Tete has completed residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT), Zentrum fur Keramik (Berlin, Germany), Northern Clay Center (Minneapolis, MN), University of Cincinnati DAAP (Cincinnati, OH), The Hambidge Center (Rabun Gap, GA), The Wassaic Project (Wassaic,NY) among others.

Tete has recently exhibited at the Dallas Art Fair and UNTITLED, Art Miami Beach. In 2021 her work was featured in two biennale exhibitions – Latvia Ceramics Biennale (Daugavapils, Latvia) and Officine Saffi (Milan, Italy).