Letha Wilson
Letha Wilson was born in Hawaii, raised in Colorado, and currently works in Craryville and Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA from Syracuse University, and her MFA from Hunter College in New York City. Letha attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2009, and her artwork has been shown at many venues including Mass MoCA, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Columbus Museum of Art, Art in General, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and International Center for Photography. Letha's work has been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, the New York Times, The New Yorker, among others. Letha has been awarded artist residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Sharpe -Walentas Studio Program, among others. In both 2019 and 2014 Letha was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Photography. In 2023 Letha had solo exhibitions at the Richard and Dolly Maas Gallery at Purchase College, SUNY, and GRIMM Gallery in London, UK. Letha will have her first institutional solo exhibition at Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, Maine in September 2024.
Portrait by Guzman
Artist Statement
In my work the ability of a photograph to transport the viewer is both called upon, and questioned; sculptural interventions attempt to compensate for the photograph’s failure to encompass the physical site it represents. Landscape photography as a genre is approached with equal parts reverence and skepticism. These pieces call to share in a view of our surrounding natural environments; specific moments chosen from the natural world held in a tenuous balance alongside our constructed everyday.
The photographs in my work have been taken myself over the last twenty years, often from travels in the American West. The hands-on relationship I have developed with photography allows me to further push its potential as sculptural material. My studio practice has a strong emphasis on material experimentation, where tests and trials lead to discoveries, and unexpected results. My interest in working with these materials and process is also that it will allow me to engage in a conversation about the landscape, our environment, and its history with more nuanced and complex possibilities.
At Tusen Takk
At Tusen Takk I will work on photogram collages in the darkroom, and develop new studies for photo-sculpture works. The Re-Photogram series starts with analog darkroom prints that move into the studio, where I play with cutting, ripping, folding and tearing the surface; then re-photographing. I also plan to work on new wall-based and freestanding photographic sculptures. To develop these pieces I manipulate inkjet prints mounted to mattboard to create small scale models of the final pieces. Tusen Takk will be an ideal situation for me to live and work surrounded by a beautiful, inspirational landscape.
Instagram: @letha.wilson
