Beyond The Lines Gallery

Beyond The Lines Gallery   exhibited Menthe’s paintings and sculptures

Menthe featured in the March Abstract Show

2017 exhibition 

 

 

OPENING

Saturday March 4th 5PM to 9PM  

Bergamot Station 2525 Michigan Avenue G-8  Santa Monica, CA 90404   714 369 9869

contact menthewells@gmail.com 

welded steel sculptures characterize the recent work of Menthe’s art. Initially, the sculptures were soft sculptures that resulted in the media name “soft sculpturist extaordinaire” given by the Hartford Times in a Sunday edition full page spread featuring her work as a museum artist.   

 

 

Sounds

The Sounds series was initially (recently) exhibited in two municipal museums in Europe  in its entirety. The large panel hangings filled the museum gallery space with vigor and dynamic imagery.

 

Menthe Wells Artist education and exhibitions      contact menthewells@gmail.com

www.menthewells.com 

Who’s Who in American Art – listed 30 years 1987-2017   email menthewells@gmail.com  website www.menthewells.com

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

Dp.ED University of Connecticut

MA Fine Art Rutgers University

BS Art University of Bridgeport

Advanced Fine Art studies in Drawing and Painting

University of Wisconsin and University of Bridgeport

Midcareer current painting, folios and sculpture Painting extensively in Asia: Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam. Europe: Germany, England, France, Russia, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland, Greece, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Australia and in Arab cultures. Studying Art within the finest international museum collections worldwide. Creative work in South America, Africa, and Mexico. The California and Southwestern landscapes have synaesthetic and eco-arts distinctive influences in the many individual series of welded steel sculptures, paintings, and photographic studies. Mixed media includes prints, etchings, lithographs, paintings and sculpture.

Beyond The Lines March 2017, March Abstract Show Bergamot Station Santa Monica, CA paintings and sculpture juried

The Shelfhaudt Gallery Spring 2017, paintings and sculpture juried.  University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design, Gallery is prominent as it stands, “…as a high water mark of creative thought and design.”

The Shelfhaudt Gallery Spring 2016 , The Schelfhaudt Gallery, group exhibition; Invitational, University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design, Gallery is prominent as it stands, “…as a high water mark of creative thought and design.”  Painting and sculpture Juried

Tampa Art Museum paintings Fall 2016 exhibit juried

SLOMA Museum in Morrow Bay Art Center May – June 206 paintings – juried

Sarir FM FineArt Gallery Beverly Hills CA., October 2015, Solo/individual exhibition 50 works painting and sculpture Juried.

Laguna Design Center – Exhibition of sculpture in the design center: Provasi Collections  2014 – 2015 Solo Sculpture Exhibition Museum Exhibited Scupture  featuring Circular Embrace Juried

The Schelfhaudt Gallery March 2015, The Schelfhaudt Gallery, group exhibition; Invitational, University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design, Gallery is prominent as it stands, “…as a high water mark of creative thought and design.”  Painting and sculpture Juried

San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, California Spirit Animal painting exhibition July 2014 – September (fall) 2014. Juried

European Tour  Solo Individual Exhibitions included University/Uniwersytet Marii-Curie-Sklodowskiej W Lublinie, University Zajezdnia Gallery, Lublin and in the Municipal Contemporary Art Gallery, Zamosc  Poland 2014 European Exhibition: Poland 2014 major cities exhibition 65 artworks paintings and sculpture Juried Artur Popek

European Tour Solo Individual Exhibitions of 65 art works in the Municipal Contemporary Art Gallery, Zamosc  Poland 2014 European Exhibition: Poland 2014 major cities exhibition 65 artworks paintings and sculpture Juried by University/Uniwersytet Marii-Curie-Sklodowskiej W Lublinie, University Zajezdnia Gallery, Lublin and the Municipal Contemporary Art Gallery, Zamosc  Poland, Juried Artur Popek  Juried  Jerzy Tyburski

Permanent Public Collections Acquisitions 2014 University/Uniwersytet Marii-Curie-

Sklodowskiej W Lublinie, University Zajezdnia Gallery, Lublin paintings

Permanent Public Collections Acquisitions 2014 The Municipal Contemporary Art Gallery, Zamosc  Poland, paintings

San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, California – SYNERGY exhibition May 16-June 27, 2014 Gray Gallery: 29 paintings and sculpture. Juried: Museum Curator Ruta Saliklis; Museum Executive Director Karen Kile

The Hang Up Gallery of Fine Art June 2013-2016 current on-going, Invitational. Wide range of mixed media: watercolors, prints, enamels, sculpture; 52 art works. Juried

City Lights Gallery, Connecticut, April 2014 paintings and sculpture Juried Invitational,  University of Bridgeport

Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. California, March/April 2014 paintings, sculpture

San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, California exhibition September 2013 painting – enamel/mixed media. Juried

Gallery 104, California, Laguna Art Group, 2013, 2014, Exhibition of 78 paintings, enameled paintings, and sculpture, Townley Gallery of distinctive fine art. Juried

The Hang Up Gallery of Fine Art June 2013-2016 current on-going, Invitational. Wide range of mixed media: watercolors, prints, enamels, sculpture; 52 art works. Juried

Filmed artist in “Art World” documentary Laguna Artists Film; sculpture, Laguna Beach, California Art Walks 2013/14–Produced by Townley Galleries Productions

KSBR radio 88.5, California Jazz Station, Featured as “Famous Artist” April 2013

KSBR radio 88.5, California Jazz Station, Featured as Artist interview hour December 2013

The Schelfhaudt Gallery March 2013, The Schelfhaudt Gallery, group exhibition; Juried Invitational, University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design, Gallery is prominent as it stands, “…as a high water mark of creative thought and design.”

LA Artcore Gallery Tandem Solo Exhibition January 3 – 27, 2013, over 40 paintings and welded steel sculpture exhibited.  The Brewery Art Center Los Angeles, California, Lincoln Heights. (The largest art center in the United States). Juried

Laguna Design House 2012: The Philharmonic Design House, Laguna Beach, California. May and June 2012. Art Exhibition Juried Invitational by California Homes Magazine (The Magazine of Architecture The Arts & Distinctive Design)

2012 Publication of Photographic Studies: 20 Photographic Studies for SAE publication ISBN# 978-0-7680-3529-2. The 20 separate studies graphically portray intricate mechanisms. Each photographic plate was an original function and design created folio, International, Juried

Chiang Mai University CMU Art Museum, Chiang Mai, Thailand.  January-February, 2012, 18 thematic paintings, Fort Tryon, extending over 30 feet of exhibition, plus 5 thematic paintings, Inwood, 2 enameled paintings and 3 projection multimedia studies. Juried   Projection studies included:

I.                    Record the Experience – Timbulakatana, originated at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art combining historical portions from both the projection Impressions and Impressions Workshop which was the first sight-sound intermedia held in a gallery of a museum. Photography

II.                  Synaesthesia synamatics – a synaesthetic experience in visual art and synaesthetic sound. Photography

III.                Synaesthesia synamatics – the Journey Effacing The Boundaries of the Arts.

Photography

Traveling Exhibitions include International Exchange throughout Asia and Europe.

LA ARTCORE 2011, 2012 International Art Exchange 2012 – Juried International Thailand and United States – exchanges for Korea and Japan; additionally scheduled for 2015.

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Juried, oils, collages, acrylics Wadsworth Atheneum Faculty 12 paintings Happening/Event, Impressions Workshop Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Connecticut:

Sight-sound intermedia at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Juried; Impressions was stated by the museum directors Selby and Elliott to be the first sight-sound intermedia in the galleries of a museum; Photography and graphic design originated, created, directed, edited by Menthe Wells, Article published  in Arts in Society.

Developed Animated Sculpture for Happenings, which became Events for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, transitioning to television segments of children’s plays reaching 3 states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York.) Museum Exhibiting Artist, performed, children’s plays with Animated Sculpture for the Wadsworth Atheneum’s television outreach Juried: Roger Selby and James Elliott Museum Directors.

Group Gallery Juried exhibits: paintings Juried invitational, Crespi Gallery New York City; Festival of the Arts, Connecticut; Hartford Seminary; Pratt Street Traveling Hartford Artists Touring Exhibitions in Corporate/Business Invitational Art Shows – partial list exhibits:  The Gallery of

Hartford National, Main Branch; The Huntington Gallery; The Gallery of the Connecticut National;

Constitution Plaza; The Gallery of The Hartford; Tower Building; The Gallery of Hartford National

Bishops Corner. Events Galleries, Theatre, Museums – multiple honorariums received: Applied

Synaesthetics, Effacing the Boundaries Between the Arts.  Ellsworth Gallery, Connecticut (honorarium), Giancondo Christmas, animated sculpture; Ellsworth Gallery (honorarium) Julie animated sculpture, event, one woman events Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Connecticut, Giancondo Christmas animated sculpture (honorarium);  Television continuous over 7 years for CBS affiliate; New England Avon Arts and Crafts, Connecticut, (honorarium) Timbulakatana animated sculpture; Sidewalk Gallery  Connecticut, “Gallery Thursday is a Work of Art” animated sculpture; Greater Hartford College  Timbulakatana; Tunxis College  (honorarium) Timbulakatana III; Manchester College  Timbulakatana (honorarium); Wadsworth Atheneum Timbulakatana I and II; Wadsworth Atheneum Giancondo (honorariums).

Roundabout Theatre Stage II New York City solo exhibition 80 art works (honorarium) Event Juried: Gene Feist; CBS WFSB TV Corsair & Co., animated sculpture; CBS TV WFSB Wadsworth Atheneum Outreach animated sculpture; Sir Ponchartrain; Giancondo; Omnibus; Boom Boom Boomalaca. Wrote, directed, and performed 8 children’s plays, 3 states; other museum events for CBS continuously over 7 years.

ABC affiliate station KGUN TV Arizona, 1983, wrote, directed, and performed children’s plays; Harwinton Timbu-Ponchartrain animated sculpture event, one woman show (honorarium); Bristol Timbu-Ponchartrain, animated sculpture, event, one woman show (honorarium). Other Exhibitions: Artists Collaborative 6 years Juried, Teaneck Fine Arts Commission, New Jersey 2 years juried oils, acrylics, enameled paintings; New Orleans Art Show invitational oils; University of Bridgeport Spring Fine Show Arts 2 years, Juried oils; Juried watercolors; University of Bridgeport Carlson Gallery metal crafts, paintings, enamels Juried; University of Wisconsin oils Juried.

Sculpture Series Kinematic welded steel sculpture rooted in a departure from Abstract Expressionism with stabile qualities, and multiphase interactive resonances and movement, which characterizes the work. Sculptures are created as multiple works in two distinctive welded steel series. The earlier Animated Sculpture series Cleopatra, Shakespeare for Children; Timbulakatana I; Timbulakatana II;  New Concept Giancondo family, originated for the Wadsworth Atheneum on a CBS affiliate station WFSB TV, 1969-1978, and Ponchartrain animated sculpture event, one woman show; Bristol Timbu-Ponchartrain as animated sculpture, and for events such as for the Ellsworth Gallery (honorarium) and the Farmington Valley Art Center (honorarium), for one woman shows; other Animated Sculpture original work for television, for The Roundabout Theatre in New York City (honorarium) Juried: Gene Feist, and for Wadsworth Atheneum Museum events, and various university and college events.

The Lutz Museum solo, one woman major installation exhibition consisted of 38 sculptures,

Juried invitational, six weeks, Animated Sculpture Specialized Exhibit multisensory experience.

Permanent Public Collections: The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey, invitational acquisition 1986, Walderton Downs, England 1985 painting – oil, mixed media; Tunxis College, 1978 Multiplicity Blues, painting; Windsor Board of Education Public Art: thirty-two foot mural installation included participation of 97; Carlson Library; Carlson Gallery in the Bernhard Center, University of Bridgeport – Painting; University of California Riverside – Educational Building – Painting; Eastern Connecticut State University – paintings.

Private Collections 482 paintings and sculpture in private collections, nationally and  internationally.

Galleries partial list: Events, honorariums applied synaesthetics

LA Collaborative international artist influenced by synaesthetics, predominately an American Art Movement painting combining Abstract Expressionism with influences of natural elements.

ECO ARTS Northern California Sculpture 2000 – 2007 publically funded environmental gallery   May-October, 7 years Juried.

Three Elements Gallery Southern California – 3 person show, Juried, 2002. 72 art works exhibited: enamel miniatures, and acrylic paintings, prints, watercolors, mixed media.

Bushnell Gallery, Bushnell Memorial, Hartford, Connecticut, 2 person show, 8 weeks 1980, Juried invitational (Juried by Wolfgang  Beal) collages, paintings.

Bosham, England 2 years – enameled 12-15 miniature paintings  Juried

Gallery of the Ill Wind In The Red Blanket, Westbrook, Connecticut Juried invitational; animated sculpture, 2 years

Hartford Arts Festival Juried invitational solo exhibitor paid exhibitor event; solo installation/show

30 animated sculptures Constitutional Plaza.

Ellsworth Gallery, Two Solo Juried Invitational animated sculpture events – honorariums.

Wiley Gallery 12 years of continuous exhibits: paintings (oils, drawings, acrylics, enamels), graphics – prints (woodcuts, lithographs etchings); collages .Juried

Gallery 24, CPTV Exhibits 3 years, Juried – paintings, (oils, acrylics, enamels), collages, graphics, animated sculpture.

Channel 57 Springfield, Mass. Exhibition – Juried Invitational graphics.

The Gallery of the Hartford Artists, Pratt Street, 2 years Juried, continuous exhibitor: 120 art works; Solo Exhibition  6 weeks, etchings, lithographs, Gallery 24, CPTV Exhibits 3 years, paintings, (oils, acrylics, enamels), collages, graphics, animated sculpture.

Channel 57 Springfield, Mass. Exhibition – Juried Invitational graphics.

Menthe Wells Artist Synaesthetic Artist
“Soft Sculpturist Extraordinaire” Hartford Courant

Menthe Wells’ art, now in midcareer, occupies a special place in modern art’s sensibilities. She works greatly influenced by synaesthetics predominately an American Art Movement, combining Abstract Expressionism with influences of natural elements. She is honored to be listed internationally, for years, as a true synaesthetic artist with Van Gogh and Hockney

http://www.daysyn.com/synesthete-artists.html#anchor_106. The synesthetic movement, as an aspect of Abstract Expressionism, emerged in the period of 1970-1985 with American Artists. The insights of the process and neuro-psychophysical elements of this creative force were explained as synaesthesia both at Yale University and Syracuse University.

Menthe Wells’ works, Abstract Expressionism, paintings size range from under 14 inches (enameled painting miniatures) to murals 32 feet long. The works include multiple series of thematic hangings that are over 7 feet high and component thematic paintings 6’w X 5’h, other large series of paintings in groupings of 18, and various triptychs exhibited in America and in  international exhibitions.  One medium, her work in miniature painted enamels, uses translucent and opaque ground powders on metal, which are kiln fired to the porcelain heat range. The work utilizes the painted techniques of her oil, acrylic and watercolor painting. Enameled paintings and other work include influences of fragments of oriental rugs viewed in international travels to Morocco and other loom creating areas of North Africa, and influences of nature in explorations of Asia including Thailand’s forests and the Vietnam countryside and waterways. Forests, beaches in California, color and the light found in France, color and sound related feeling in Spain and the countryside of the United Kingdom add to the rich content of the work. Paintings embrace mixed media with collage, watercolor, acrylic, oil and printmaking that interweave within her imagery which included childhood experiences on the eastern seaboard of  America mixed with imagery gained in European and Asian landscapes. Expression of nature, central to California, is distinctly .recognized in birds, shells, flowers and water, which combine with other influences.

Earlier in her career, The Hartford Courant featured Menthe in a Sunday Edition in LifeStyle in a full page spread in which she was called “a Soft Sculpturist Extraordinaire.” The new work has derived from this earlier period of recognition as a “Soft sculpturist extraordinaire.”  Feist in the Chelsea Arts publication, El Aviso in 2011 in both English and Spanish, and in Cassone The International Magazine of Art published in the United Kingdom in 2013 all repeated using this commendation name originally given by The Hartford Courant.   SLOMA Museum: Exhibition  Director Ruta Saliklis described “Synergy” as one of the museum’s more avant-garde offerings

Impressions Menthe Wells originated, created, directed, and edited the very first sight sound intermedia consisting of photography, sound, film, and photographic experience ever held at a museum. This was created by Menthe for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum.  Innovative, art explorations characterized this period in which the museum was listed as one of the top ten museums in America. She named the sight-sound intermedia Impressions Workshop. The work was juried by Museum Director Roger Selby and Museum Director James Elliott who were leaders in museum innovation. The “record the experience” Happening concept was the first sight-sound intermedia, and the process physically recorded the entire year long synaesthetic experience (Event) at the museum which fully used all the galleries. The museum directors honored Menthe by making her a staff member, and including her later Events both within the museum and on television representing the museum in reaching multiple states. Other Events included the Timbulakatana Series created by Menthe, which was exhibited as her retrospective projection shown internationally at a museum in 2012. This projection brought forward the spirit of her earlier period of museum Events. Projection included in the art of Menthe Wells in the international exhibition of 28 of her art works in the Chiang Mai University Art Museum in Thailand, and was one of three of her projections shown in the exhibition.

The artist’s work utilizes synaesthesia in thematic variations of specific fine arts themes in paintings of landscape in which the central focus is perception using the cross-modal senses to feel the landscape elements. In contrast, process emphasis is seen in her enamel paintings, which maintain an underlying force of the unity of the senses. Menthe Wells moved from a monumental size of creation to include the enameled miniatures, subsequent to research on how miniatures emerged historically in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this historic time period, miniatures were analogous to the larger oil paintings. In these contemporary miniatures, Menthe Wells, as the artist within a midcareer timeframe, creates the theme, but does not introduce texture. She works, instead, with the flat reflective surface of metal.

Menthe Wells’ work creates form including birds, flora, shells, and leaves, which are abstracted. The artist uses a systematic application of her iconography effecting experience through synaesthetic multisensory perception. Using the example of flora, the experience includes cutaneous and tactile reflective observation. The experience combines with the process, and the artist uses the language of feeling in fine art creation to efface traditional boundaries in expression. As an artist, Menthe Wells continues to grow midcareer to find further expression in sculpture. The earlier roots of the artist’s symbolism included the Bauhaus influence in her work when she studied painting under an artist who was the student of both Albers and Hoffman.  The emphasis emerged as effacing the boundaries between fine and applied art.

Imagery is built on experience, and the theme of Mardi Gras which was an early work shown at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Faculty Exhibit came from living in New Orleans and the deep south. Other earlier influences of the development of Menthe Wells’ style came through the many years of growing up in New York City, which were filled with a museum life of painting and drawing. Her teens centered on learning painting technique both through formal study and through co-painting in the production of a group of paintings some of which she was the key subject for, as both an artist and a model, featured extensively at the Crespi Gallery’s exhibits (midtown galleries) in New York City. As a small child, she had a featured day at MOMA painting expressively with two brushes, one in each hand. Menthe Wells holds four degrees including two formal art degrees and a doctorate degree. Other study in art included childhood conversations with Bishop who gave her a dimensional understanding of form, which translates to the miniatures and which combines with natural responses from synaesthetic experiences.

In contrast to New York School Abstract Expressionism, the process work in the enameled miniatures utilizes traditional painting techniques with glass powders, bonding agents, and with a kiln-fired surface. The medium is crushed glass, a fine metal base of copper, and a surface of powders of color from the United States, Europe, and Asia. The reflective surface is predominately shiny and is similar to a Limoges surface, which was the evolutionary root influencing the development of the artist’s earliest enamel paintings.

The broad calligraphic rhythm seen in the brushwork of Menthe Wells’ larger paintings is also evidenced in the enameled paintings and in the calligraphic drawing using rhythm found in her welded steel sculpture. Her work uses a broad calligraphic line, which functions as static line on the dimensional surfaces. Transferring her technique into enameled miniature paintings, the use of distemper, a painting medium utilizing powdered color mixed with sizing, is combined with drypoint painting technique before kiln firing. The paste of pigment is painted and variations of process can contain gum arabic. The colors are blended and given washes of transparent color reproducing nature thematically. In contrast to the earlier influence of the Limoges technique, the paintings and their surfaces now have a visual newness. The elements of the artist’s landscape themes reflect objects seen through multisensory perception of the landscape experience. Perception synaesthetically conveys the taste and smells reminiscent of seasonal fragrances and serenity, lovely to experience, but devoid of the context of social realism. The paintings and prints speak softly, but the sensory feeling is eloquent. The creation is the expression of feeling.