Teresa Guadalupe Olds

I JUST WANT TO BE ME WHEN I GROW UP…

RE: turning, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, 66 5th Ave, New York, 2025.

TILL THE END..

Thank You

  • The only way out of

    SUFFERING is through suffering. Let pain rob you of all the things you don't need and dreams may be realized in the process...

    I JUST WANNA BE ME WHEN I GROW UP..

Artist Statement

My work navigates the interplay between vulnerability, the surreal, and the complex journey of healing. Rooted in my lived experience as a young woman, I create dreamlike spaces where reality and fantasy merge. Through my art, I examine the tension between belonging and alienation, exploring how trauma, love, and the secrets we carry shape our inner landscapes. 


Vulnerability is foundational to my practice and I am drawn to the question of what it means to be truly seen, by both ourselves and others. While this exposure can be uncomfortable, I believe it has the power to connect and heal.


My work exists at the intersection of memory, transformation, and spiritual inquiry. Rooted in personal experience and perception, my paintings translate vulnerability into immersive environments.
These works are born from moments of profound change: surviving cancer, undergoing a transformative spiritual retreat in Mexico, and navigating the loss of my father.

My practice is an act of radical honesty, reclaiming hidden parts of myself and offering spaces for communion with the unseen. At the heart of my process is also personal mythology: reframing lived experiences, even painful ones, through a mythic lens that transforms them into narrative cycles of meaning, renewal, and growth. This reframing allows me to process trauma as part of an ongoing journey, expanding beyond the rigid, western frameworks of the systems we inherit.