Artist Statement
My work explores a personal language of abstraction through a focus on linear form and pattern. My process is reductive. There is a back-and-forth between simplicity and complexity and the way a work is perceived in time and in space. I am interested in similarities and diversities in the range of natural patterns that exist and those that are human made.
In juxtaposing the two, one against the other, and combining them, I am shedding light on the quintessential relationship between these things and my ability to understand them. Each work is an opportunity to make concrete the intangibilities that surround this line of inquiry.
The work embodies a strong material presence, inviting the viewer or visitor to enter into a dialogue between physical and illusionistic space. Forms and images blend into one another, and are subverted and redefined in new ways. I have culled a growing vocabulary of evocative symbols that touch upon a universal visual language with ruling factors beyond our grasp. Observation and drawing are important aspects of both my paintings and sculptural work, though the abstract things that I make are many steps removed. That gap between subject and object is a space that is hard to quantify and seems to be a wellspring of energy one can access, but that is utterly obscure and mysterious to us. And yet, that place, that space or that thing is what is most unique to each person.
So the quest for touching upon the universal is also the quest for self-knowledge and the quest to understand our relationship to nature.
From a Spring 2018 BROOKLYN RAIL REVIEW...
"... it's Letven who comes closest to charting a viable new path for abstraction. Light and heavy, flat and full all at once, her work uses color not just to imitate space but to play with the very idea of it, to marvelous effect.
But it was her laser-precise paper cut-outs which left me thinking hardest. By consciously juxtaposing patterns drawn from technology and nature against each other in a highly stylized manner, all while employing high-tech implements, Letven seems to be interrogating humanity’s relationship to the world from which it sprang, discovering forms which blur the distinction we tend to make between ourselves and our ecology. " – John Micheal Colon
BIO
Wendy Letven is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation and painting in the New York area. She has created installations for Art on Paper Fair, the Flatiron Prow Artspace, Market Art and Design, and The Sheila R. Johnson Gallery at the New School, among others.
Wendy is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and a recipient of a Workspace Grant from Dieu Donne Papermill in New York. Raised in Philadelphia, she received a BFA from Tyler School of Art and an MFA from Hunter College. She teaches Art and Design at New York University and at Parsons School of Design.
Education
MFA, Hunter College, New York, NY
BFA, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Exhibiting history
2020
Travels Inward, 2-person show, NL=US, Rotterdam, September 5-October 17, 2020
Art off Screen, an international exhibition, organized by Eileen Jeng Lynch, of artwork and performances in outward-facing locations around the globe, July 18 - September 26 2020
Lines Falling Together in Time, Solo Exhibition, Fou Gallery, Brooklyn, Curated by Lynn Hai, February 28-July 3, 2020
Flowtopia 2, Urban Outfitters Corporate Headquarters, Philadelphia Navy Yard, PA, March-June, 2020
Art on Paper Fair, New York, represented by K. Imperial Fine Art, March 5-8, 2020
2019
Pulse Miami, represented by NL=US, December, 2019
“Uprooted”, Stairway Installation for Portal, Governor’s Island, New York, September, 2019
“Flowtopia”, Market Art and Design, Featured Installation, Bridgehampton, NY, July 2019
“On the Rocks”, Susan Ely Fine Art, New York, NY, June-September, 2019
“Meta Morphologies”, Art on Paper Fair, Featured Installation, New York, March, 2019
“Transformed: Paper in Dimension”, Hunterdon Art Museum, Group Show curated by Carol Eckert, May-August, 2019
2018
“Drawing the Invisible”, Flatiron Prow Artspace, Installation, 23rd Street, New York, through April 2019
“Formative”, Brasswork Gallery, One Person Show, Montclair, New Jersey, September-November, 2018
“Haptic/Optic”, Group Show, Equity Gallery, Lower East Side, NY, March, 2018
“Between the Color”, Site Brooklyn, Gowanus, NY, Group show with artists Emily Berger, Miriam Ancis, Hovey Brock, Karen-Nielsen Fried, Fred Benheim, February, 2018
“Approaching Vibrancy”, Site Specific Lobby installation, curated by Mary Birmingham of the Visual Arts Center of NJ, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Gallery, Morristown, NJ, Through August, 2018
“Collage as Matter”, Group show with artists Jim Osman, Nanette Carter and others Sponsored by Sothebys Real Estate, Chelsea Gallery District, NY, Through May, 2018
“Making as Thinking”, Site Specific Installation for Group Show at Studio Montclair, Montclair, NJ, February, 2018
“Personal Identity Matter”, Group Shows at Gallery MC, 549 W 52nd St, New York, January 2018
“Crosstown”, Featured Installation for I Love Playtime”, Metropolitan Pavillion, New York, March 2018
2017
“The Big Small Show”, Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ,
JCAST, “Jersey City open studios, Jersey City, NJ, Oct 13-14
Gallery on Division, “Conception”, Somerville, NJ, Sept 14 - Oct 28
B.J.Spoke Gallery, “Paperworks 2017”, Huntington, NY, Aug 2 - Aug 27
Islip Art Museum, “Duality: Glimpses of the Other Side”, East Islip, NY, June 24-September 17
City Without Walls, 31st Annual Metro Show, Newark, NJ, June 7-June 30, Awarded First Place
2016
Mayson Gallery, The Persistent Nature of Urgency, works on paper, w. 26th Street, Chelsea, New York, June 7-June 30
Playtime New York, “The Language of Form” installation, Metropolitan Pavillion, New York, July 29-August 2
Activate Market Street, “Random Misfirings of the Brain”, storefront installation, 77 Market Street, Newark, New Jersey, Januaury 30 to May 30, 2016
2015
Momenta Art, 2015 Spring Benefit, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY
Concepto Hudson, Installation for “Red Valentine”, Hudson, New York
Aljira Gallery, Viewpoints 2015, Newark, NJ
2014
Gallery Aferro, Open Studio and Artist’s Talk, Newark, NJ
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC), Installation, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY
Friday Studio Gallery, Group Show, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY
Local Project, Exquisite Collage, Group Show, Long Island City, Queens, NY
Aljira Gallery, Viewpoints 2014, Newark, NJ
2013
Wendy Letven Recent Paintings, Afif Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2012
Form+Flow, Wendy Letven and Ruth Borgenicht, Prudential, Montclair, NJ
Art Connections 9, Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey
Afforable Art Fair, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey
2010
Faces, MH Art gallery, New York City, NY
2009
20@10, 10th Anniversary Exhibit, Arts Guild of Rahway, Rahway, NJ
2006
Best in Show, Gallery de Soto, Los Angeles, CA Anecdotes, Pierro Gallery of South Orange, New Jersey
2005
Second Thought, Solo Exhibit, Afif Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Of Time, Place & People, Arts Guild of Rahway, Rahway, NJ
Essex Exposed, Pierro Gallery of South Orange, New Jersey
Art Santa Fe, Santa Fe, de Soto, Los Angeles, Santa Fe New Mexico
2004
23rd Annual Metro Show, City Without Walls Gallery, Newark, NJ
Figure in Context, Afif Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2002
The Insomnia Show, City Without Walls Gallery, Newark, NJ
1998
New Jersey Arts Annual, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ1
997
Wendy Letven: Paintings, Solo Exhibition, State University of New York at Oneonta, New York
1996
Selections from the AIM Program, Bronx Museum, Bronx, New York
1995
Dieu Donne Editions, 1988-1995, Dieu Donne Papermill, New York City
Decorative Subversion, Counterpoint Gallery, Wilmington, DE
Mothers, Fathers, Sons, and Daughters, Laurie W. and Irvin J. Borowsky Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Mirror, Mirror, Paramount Center for the Arts, Peekskill, New York
1995
Wendy Letven: Recent Works, Solo Exhibition, Kubiak Gallery, Oneonta, NY
Line-Up: At the Police Building, OIA, New York, Curators: Jane Farver, Charles Hagen, Elizabeth Hess, Saul Ostrow, Calvin Reid
Four Artists, Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA
University of Bridgeport, National Juried Show, Carlson Gallery, Bridgeport, Curator: Elizabeth Sussman, Whitney Museum
Selections, Lehman College Art Gallery, Curator: Susan Hoeltzel, Director
1992
Artists in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum, Bronx, NYAllentown Art Museum, National Juried Show, Allentown, PA