Leigh Wen March 7—September 29, 2008
Ponte Vecchio 5 © 2007 Leigh Wen. Used with permission.
Leigh Wen portrays the powerful forces of water and nature on a grand scale in her work, currently exhibited at The Beacon Institute's gallery at 199 Main Street in Beacon.
“My paintings express my personal and cultural histories. Having grown up on the island of Taiwan, I have a deep affinity for the elemental power of water and the forces of nature,” says Ms. Wen. “As a Chinese now living in America, I feel the ebb and flow of competing cultures. The ancient philosophies of my homeland, which teach self-discipline and selflessness, collide and mingle with Western notions of ego, alienation, and desire.”
Born and raised in a small country village outside of Taipei, Taiwan, Leigh Wen grew up close to nature and spent her formative years exploring art and ceramics among the artisans of her village. Following studies at the National Taiwan University of Art, Ms. Wen immigrated to the United States and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Washington State University. She later earned both her Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from the State University of New York at Albany. Ms. Wen has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for over 20 years. Her work is featured in a significant number of corporate and private collections and she is involved with the Art in Embassies program which exhibits her work in American embassies in Hong Kong, Botswana, Jordan, Barbados, Manila and Singapore, among others. She has been a recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Helena Rubenstein Foundation, as well as a highly coveted grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
In describing her artistic process, Ms. Wen says, “My working method is a process of subtraction from darkness to light. I carved into the paint with a stylus to bring forth the individual lines that are the central motif of my work. These lines flow across the canvas in rhythms and frequencies that create depths and swells on the painted surface… Color is used to expand the work's emotional range; my palette is drawn not from appearances but from the lyric and psychic necessities of my art. The uniformity of line, from edge to edge and painting to painting, implies a suppression of the artist's hand in favor of an objectivity learned from nature. In spite of this, the work remains deeply autobiographical.” She notes that her inclination toward creating large scale works of art stems from Taoist concepts of how humans relate to nature.
This exhibit is generously sponsored by 
Artist talks by Ms. Wen were made possible, in part, by an education grant from Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union.
Gallery, bookstore and gift shop hours:
Weekdays: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturdays: 11a.m. – 5 p.m. (second Saturdays until 8 p.m.)
Sundays: 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.
(Please note: We occasionally close the space for special meetings.)
