Cindy Baker

The title of this series of drawings by local artist Tessa Nunn, "more pinups", makes specific reference to another Front Room show by Edmonton artist Shara Rosko; "Pinups"

Not only does the title hint to a playfulness apparent in Nunn's work and a disposable un-precious attitude towards the drawings; it hints to the saccharine preciousness that often amounts to overkill in figurative work. (It is that same sweetness that Rosko capitalizes on and pokes fun at in her colour studies.) Pinups are cute, self-indulgent, consumable, easy to like, and mass-produced. They're ripped out of magazines, pinned to the wall of the garage, workshop or adolescent bedroom, and tossed out when the image or the desire fades. They reference pop culture, not high art. They cry "Accessibility! low-brow taste!"
So how does this show function? These tiny drawings are exercises; studies in drawing and cropping and composition and thinking about the figure, but most importantly, in loosening up. They are disposable because they are unfinished, unconsidered - practice. They are worth exhibiting because they are examples of where the artist is at one point in her artistic development. In a self-driven period of learning, Tessa is showing the public what she is doing or attempting to do - not the destination, but snapshots of the journey.
If the work appears self-indulgent, that's because it IS. No, this isn't even art for art's sake, this is art for the artist's sake. Tessa's paintings are well-considered carefully thought out wholes. These studies reveal more about the pin-up girl than about her paintings. She wants these studies to teach her to be loose, to have fun, to know and love the line of the body not as it exists in life but as it is translated through her hand to the page or canvas. The show itself is also self-indulgent; it is an opportunity for the artist to immerse herself and her work in a public context which by its' very nature implies finished-ness. It frees her to look at her work as finished simply because of its situation in the gallery, by-passing the step whereby she must "finish" the work.

There is a strong movement in contemporary art towards the examination of self-indulgence. For Tessa, though, self-indulgence is a learning tool through which she hopes to inform her work. Her paintings reference well-known painters, well-studied poses, well-loved themes. The familiar themes and poses belie an interest in a re-examination of that which has come to be seen as traditional or conventional. Her best work happens when she's unconcerned with FINISH -what she does in the sketches is exactly what she needs to capitalize on in her paintings, and what does happen in her underpaintings - before she gets to the point where she needs to say, okay, how do I make this into a painting? How do I finish this, how do I make it NICE?
When Manet painted his now famous Olympia, critics of the time held it up as an example of all that was crude, unrefined and ugly in modern painting. Contemporary eyes will find this piece remarkably well-refined and sensitive, if not realistic and highly finished. It's all about context.
The title of Nunn's show also references the arrangement, volume, and minuscule size of the work in Rosko's show. As Rosko, Nunn is de-emphasizing the importance of the singular piece of art in favour of the (overwhelming?) body. This serves not only to deconstruct the idea of preciousness or value in each piece, but to remind the audience that these works are not to be viewed as individual finished works of art, but as means to an end. Rhythm, pattern, tiling, repetition, sequence; the artist pounds these out one after the other and yes, they are considered and yes, they are good, yes, they are individual works in and of themselves; she has carefully edited the selection we see, has carefully placed and ordered the arrangemen - but in the end, when her desire has waned, she can crumple up these pinups in favour of new ones.