Tula Telfair: Invented Landscapes - Tapa dura

Tula Telfair's hyper-realistic landscape paintings are at once awe-inspiring and extremely personal. Although vividly detailed, the scenes she depicts are not found in nature; they are conjured from memory and imagination. Informed by her experiences growing up on four continents, Telfair produces fantastical visions with delicate brushstrokes and a breathtaking mastery of colour and light. Suggestive of waterfalls in Africa, deserts of the American Southwest, and ice floes in Antarctica, Telfair's art draws attention to the power and fragility of nature. Essays by Henry Adams and Michael S. Roth explore the technical and aesthetic aspects of Telfair's work, her personal history and the interplay between realism and invention.

Tula Telfair grew up in Africa, Asia and Europe before moving to the United States. Her work is featured in public collections around the world and has been widely exhibited. She is a professor of art at Wesleyan University and lives and works in New York City and Lyme, Connecticut. Henry Adams has written 14 books or book-length exhibition catalogues and is a professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, publishes essays, book reviews and commentaries in national media and scholarly journals. He lives in Connecticut. J. Michael Fay is an American biologist, ecologist, conservationist and is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.