Terry Berlier
“Terry Berlier makes conceptual art of unusual intelligence, humor and sensitivity to the impact of materials.”—Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
I am an Associate Professor of Art and an interdisciplinary artist teaching classes primarily in sculpture. I acknowledge that Stanford University occupies the unceded lands of the Muwekma Ohlone Nation, and honor the ancestral and ongoing relationships between the Muwekma Ohlone and these territories. I acknowledge that I am a settler on these lands with an obligation to humility; gratitude; and contributions to Indigenous rematriation and sovereignty, wellness and well-being, and the collective struggle against colonization and oppression.
Terry Berlier is an interdisciplinary artist who investigates the evolution of human interaction with queerness and ecologies. She has exhibited in solo and group shows in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia. This results in sculptures that are kinetic and sound based, and multi-media installations. She emphasizes the essential roles played by history, cultural memories, and environmental conditions in the creation of our identities. Using humor, she provides tools for recovering and reanimating our faltering connections with self, queerness, nature, and society. Interweaving movement, sound, and interaction as a metaphor for both harmonious and dissonant interactions, Berlier acts as an archaeologist excavating material objects to challenge our understanding of progress and reveal how history is constructed within a cultural landscape.
She has exhibited in solo and group shows in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia including the Marc Chagall National Museum in France, Museum of Old and New Art in Australia, Contemporary Art + Spirits in Osaka, Japan, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. She has received numerous residencies and grants including the Creative Work Fund Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation Grant, the Zellerbach Foundation, and the Arts Council Silicon Valley Artist Fellowship. Her work has been reviewed in the Art in America, BBC News Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, is published in the book ‘Seeing Gertrude Stein’ by Wanda Corn and Tirza Latimer through University of California Press, and ‘Slant Step Book: The Mysterious Object and The Artworks it Inspired’ by Francesca Wilmott. Her work is in several collections including the University of Arizona, Tucson, Kala Art Institute, and Bildwechsel Archive in Berlin, Germany. She received a Masters in Fine Arts in Studio Art from University of California, Davis and a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Berlier is a Professor and Director of the Sculpture Lab in the Department of Art and Art History and the Director of Graduate Studies.
Selected Courses:
Resisting Monuments at the End of the World
Sculpture I/II
