Terri Hallman Interviews

Terri Hallman was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin on August 10, 1962.

What was your childhood like? 

     There was a lot of family trauma. When I was five and my father worked with eighteen-wheelers. When he was thirty-five, he was struck in the head by a hub cap that flew off a truck. He survived, but his personality was affected. There was so much trauma around that. The strain was too much for my mother, and she eventually left with her four girls (I have three older sisters, 3, 4 and 5 years older).

    There were times when we lived at poverty level. Mother was very good at making things look better than they were; she would serve lunch on beautiful dinnerware. But she was vulnerable and emotionally weak and wept a lot. She let us feel insecure. So as an adult, I feared security for a long time.

     The family was so split. For a time, I lived with my mother’s relatives in central Minnesota. Her mother, my grandmother, lived on a beautiful farm, but there was something brutal about life there.

 Did you have any interest in art at this time?

     I was always drawing as a child. My earliest memories are when I was about six years old. I was disconnected from my family, so I drew. It was really about retreating and avoiding. I only did drawings about women, since I was so familiar with them.

     I got a lot of encouragement for my drawings. My third grade teacher was very important for me. Every time I made a drawing, she would hug me and praise me in front of the class. So I kept it up. I was living in Minnesota at that time. I consider Minneapolis to be my home town even now.

Click here to read the rest of this recent interview with Terri Hallman.

Southwest Art
Terri Hallman: Moving Forward

I can be moving or I can be still,
But still is still moving to me…– Willie Nelson

The lush green foliage and bright flowers of a semi-tropical garden sway in a gentle breeze below the balcony of Terri Hallman’s second floor studio outside Houston, and the artist is starting to think she likes the idea of staying in this place a while. She’s been working in the garden, and for the first time in her 45 years her thumbs are turning green from something other than pigments.

Hallman’s life has been one of movement, geographically and artistically. The stimulation and challenge of new places, mediums, and methods has always invited her to shake off any hint of staleness and try new things. But there’s clearly a counter-force at work as well. Her lively, richly hued, and visually playful paintings are almost always anchored in the straight-on stare of the human face, with its unchanging qualities of quiet observation and subtle vulnerability. This odd equilibrium contributes, no doubt, to the strong attraction in Hallman’s art, which is internationally collected and represented by galleries around the United States and abroad. Now movement and stillness are beginning to find balance in the artist’s life as well.

For complete this interview from Southwest Art Magazine please click here.

Exclusive Interview with Terri Hallman April 2007

Q) At what age did you first start to "paint" and what was the subject matter?
A) As far back as I remember I was always drawing. I grew up in a house with 4 sisters and my mother - so my subject was faces - usually women, and horses. (I think they were "male".) A lot of childhood photos catches me with my sketchbook and disconnected from the activity around me. I can see from those photos by age 6 or so that I had already found that place (mentally, psychologically) that I go to now when I work, or my head was up and facing towards the sky, looking inward rather than towards the viewer.
I only drew - pencil, graphite - until about age 25, I tried painting just once in high school when an art teacher wanted me to try. I didn’t like it so I never tried it again. my drawing progressed, typically, into photorealism and I became interested in drawing textures like cloth, leather and wood, etc. making them as realistic and tactile as I could. College made me stop drawing and being so safe and anal.

Q) Have you always painted figurative work?
A)The majority, yes. I find faces endlessly interesting, not necessarily the face structure but displays of some kind of emotion on the face, gestures and gestural, good, bad, darkness and joy - it’s all fascinating to me. I’ve read, and read, a lot about psychology and physiognomy these are my interests. The figure and face is also just a subject for me to practice and develop interests I have in line, positive/negative space, movement, colour and endless others.

To read the rest of an interview with Terri Hallman from Art of England magazine click here.