Visit Southside Gallery through January 1, 2022 for the first collaborative exhibit by Carlyle Wolfe Lee and Thad Lee, titled Murmurations.
“The show is called Murmurations because of the patterns birds, like starlings and blackbirds, make when they twist and turn in the sky as one,” said Thad Lee. “The bulk of the art is centered around the places my wife and I have been together. The photographs come from that real-time experience of the places, while my wife’s comes from a later impression of that landscape or study of a piece of vegetation that we carried home.
There is also an installation of wooden zinnias that were made from drawings Carlyle has made since graduate school, as well as a salon-styled wall of Moon Paintings of mine, which are really photographs made from drawing with light.”
In their first joint exhibition, husband and wife, Thad Lee and Carlyle Wolfe Lee, represent an expansive field of wildflowers in late summer, the Dixon Woodland Gardens in bright fall, wintery trails at Crystal Bridges, early spring on an Oxford morning, and lush June in Cashiers, North Carolina. Carlyle’s paintings and Thad’s photographs examine intricacies and abstract patterns in the atmospheres they portray.
“We titled the show Murmurations after discussing the graceful synchronicity of many birds moving as one,” Carlyle explains. “Thad loved the word and suggested that it conceptually structure our collaboration. As we developed paintings and photographs about places we experienced together, it was a sort of dance. I enjoyed responding to Thad’s colors and compositions, and Thad developed new techniques to introduce very painterly veils of color in his photographs.”
Many moments of unity echo between Carlyle and Thad’s distinct voices in the shared atmospheres they represent. Then, in the back of the gallery, Thad’s Moon Paintings are a sort of brilliant solo. Thad developed the abstractions as décor for a key setting in one of his screenplays —a hotel on the moon—and describes the process of making them as “painting with light.”
Join the artists for a reception at Southside Gallery Thursday, December 2, from 5 to 8 pm.
