San Luis Obispo Museum of Art   Museum Book available of Menthe Wells large museum SLOMA exhibit 2014

Paintings exhibited in 2018. Water colors – multiple paintings

email menthewells@gmail.com  website www.menthewells.com

Menthe Wells is an American born international museum exhibiting artist (museums in Asia and Europe) who works in welded steel to assemble two different forms of work: a calligraphic system of dynamic tensions in one 3-dimensional framework and a geometric tension in an alternative 3-dimensional framework.  The energy in line drawing using steel in sculpture to build assemblies portrays sound. The sound is the synaesthetic (synaesthesia based) reaction, which emerges and recedes visibly within shifting planes. Techniques are selected to show experiential 3-dimensional images. They are additionally derived from rigid geometric forms and contrast areas of metallic line with hardness. One body of work in 5’-7’ tall sculptures becomes calligraphic drawings in steel (SLOMA Museum of Art). The individual sculptures portray music, sound, acceleration in line, and form. In contrast, a second body of work in welded metal sculpture, which can be less than 11 pounds and smaller in stature, shows geometric static forces united in space through contiguous visual relationships (SLOMA Museum of Art, Cedar MOAH Museum of Art). The recent sculpture derives from the earlier whimsical large soft sculpture, which were created decades ago for Happenings and Events (Wadsworth Atheneum Art Museum used on CBS television) Hartford Courant – “soft sculpturist extraordinaire.”  As a new extended linear form synergistically related to painting (The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum of Art) the work includes action lines of welded steel as calligraphic drawing in metal. The linear action and strength is reminiscent of David Smith’s works. The current approach is based upon synaesthetics using action/experiential, minimalistic, yet symbolic, metaphorical forms (Impressions, Soft Sculptures, and Paintings Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art). Contributory understandings grew from doctoral study in synaesthesia for PhD research.  Sculptural expression is influenced by connections to personal experience with Lipchitz and Rauschenberg, and whimsical contributions derived from Lichtenstein and the work of Klee and Miro. The form shows visual tension and linear action using.

 Ph.D. Synaesthetics/Synaesthesia research, University of Connecticut

Dp.ED University of Connecticut 

MA Fine Art Rutgers University      

BS Art University of Bridgeport (Dana Scholar studied under Lam)

 Advanced Fine Art studies in Drawing and Painting

University of Wisconsin and University of Bridgeport