Utah Canyon Concrete Bend (Steel)

Label

Letha Wilson’s sculptural objects merge photographs of the natural landscape with industrial materials. Her imagery often depicts the canyons, ridges, and ranges of the American West. In American culture, the Western landscape has an alluring, mythic status representing endless promise. As Wilson muses, this image of the West “feels so dated, and I wonder why. In the beginning, I was curious to articulate the contemporary landscape, and how to make the genre relevant and lift it out of cliché.” The artist cuts, tears, and shapes photographs, and prints portions of the images in distinct colors—in this case a canyon in Utah with hints of purple—then encases the compositions in poured cement. Merging the rugged, natural terrain with the artificial, much of her work explores the relationship between man-made and natural environments.

From the 2019 exhibition New Landscapes: Contemporary Responses to Globalization, curated by Jessica Hong, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art

Exhibition History

New Landscapes: Contemporary Responses to Globalization, Class of 1967 Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 15-August 18, 2019.

Zabriskie Point, Jack Hanley Gallery, Jan. 9–Feb. 8, 2015

Provenance

The artist, Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York, late 2014 to early 2015 (finished in early 2015); Anonymous gift; given to present collection, 2018.

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Subjects