On view through December 30, 2019

Tatiana Potts (Slovakian, born 1971), Details from Tajtania, 2016. Ink and paper. Courtesy of the artist.

Tatiana Potts works with printmaking and paper sculpture to construct new architectural worlds. Her large-scale installations combine pathways and portals—windows, columns, doors, arches, and staircases—to remember and reinvent transforming places.

Potts is the second artist participating in Hall Walls, an annual project that gives artists and students the freedom to create an ephemeral mural on the walls of the museum. During Interterm 2018, Potts worked with Stephen Johnson ‘19, Effy Yao (Mount Holyoke College), Gina Pryciak (Skidmore College), and Marley Nascimento (GCC/Amherst High).

During a preparatory site visit to Amherst, Potts documented architectural details across campus. She became especially interested in the forms and patterns of Morris Pratt Dormitory, with its doorways framed by columns and arches, topped with double windows trimmed in limestone. Using these details as inspiration, Potts printed on paper repeating patterns that serve as guides for folds that make illusions of mass and volume. Improvising with the space of the Mead’s hallway, Potts has constructed a new paper architecture.

Originally from Slovakia and currently based in Knoxville, Tennessee, Potts is associated with the University of Tennessee School of Art and has work in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.