5/6/2015
Letha Wilson
Grimm, Amsterdam
Look With Your Hands. For the exhibition the artist presents a body of new work combining photography as a material medium with materials like concrete and steel.
For her first solo show with the gallery, Letha Wilson presents a body of new work combining photography as a material medium with materials like concrete and steel. Wilson cuts, tears and shapes her photographs, push- ing and pulling the prints into place and then encases portions of the composition in cement.
She explores the magnetic pull of the American West, alluding to landscape’s intrinsic role in our own myths of reinven- tion, endless possibility, and inevitable promise. Photo- graphs of expansive canyons, mountains, and vistas are tied physically to the gallery, in some cases embedded directly into the walls, floor, and ceiling, blurring the lines between image and object. Using architecture and three-dimensionality as both frame and armature, Wilson reclaims the photographic image, exploring the medium’s inability to encompass the site it represents.
This exhibition bends, punctures, and distorts images of an iconic American landscape, rendering the terrain’s vastness and raw potential into form. The pieces oper- ate as monuments, evoking the legacies of the mythic American west while positing questions about what our landscape holds for the future. In the current climate, where the natural world has been overshadowed by the enormity of our capacity for industrialization, Wilson’s work captures the sublime power of nature.
In Letha Wilson’s own words: “My artwork uses images I have photographed in the natural landscape as a starting point for interpretation and confrontation. My work cre- ates relationships between architecture and nature, the gallery space and the American wilderness. In the photo- based sculptures the ability for a photograph to transport the viewer is both called upon, and questioned; landscape photography is approached with equal parts reverence and skepticism.”
About
Letha Wilson was born in Honolulu, raised in Colorado and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. She earned her BFA from Syracuse University, and a MFA from Hunter College. Residencies include: Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Yaddo, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts. Wilson has exhibited at the Essl Museum, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Socrates Sculpture Park, Exit Art, ARKO Art Center and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Recent solo exhibitions include: Higher Pictures, NY; Light- work, Syracuse; Brand New Gallery, Italy; Christophe Gaillard, Paris.
Image: Letha Wilson - Salt Flats
Opening: Saturday, June 06, 2015 from 5 pm till 8 pm
Grimm
Frans Halsstraat 26, Amsterdam
Mon - Sat 12pm to 6pm