Turnpike Art Group: wehle

in The Frame #8 - Elise Wehle - Penumbra in The Frame October 2014

Penumbra 2014
126 x 88 cm. Paper cut collage.
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www.elisewehle.com
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You suggest a conscious decision to counter our absorption into the digital age, through a time-intensive, hands-on process. When and how did this resolution manifest?

It happened while I was in college. At the time I was experiencing artist’s block. Actually, it wasn’t artist’s block because I had a million ideas for different art pieces that seemed super exciting, but I just couldn’t will myself to make any of them. I’d try and try, but every time I came home from my classes, I found myself in front of my computer or phone, and the evening suddenly disappeared into a series of web pages. During exhausting all-nighters, I’d rush to complete my art assignments right before their deadlines. This chaotic routine left me discontent, but I just couldn’t find the discipline to make art consistently. Then one day I decided to make art to specifically counteract what I was experiencing, to somehow reduce the consuming affect technology had on my life. I accomplished this by creating art that demanded a lot from my hands, and I experimented with paper cutting for the first time. I never banished my computer or became a Luddite, but by making art that required meticulous movements I rediscovered both my self-discipline and my passion for art. It was renewing and exhilarating.

By electing to embrace a very time intensive means to make your artworks, is their some element of catharsis or meditation experienced as you work?

Definitely. The meditative affect of my artistic process is what keeps me coming back for more. Every day I crave the chance to breakaway from all the distractions and noise around me and just cut patterns for hours. I love it.

How do you select the images which root your compositions?

I wish I had a better answer for this, but it’s a very visceral method. There is just something about the photograph that connects with me, and I get instant ideas about how I would modify it. That immediate inspiration is what tells me I have to use that photograph and not another.

All artwork, text and images © Turnpike Art Group 2022.

"I make the art I do to pull me away from the increasingly digital world that surrounds me. Every day I spend so much time in front of a glowing screen that sometimes I forget I possess five bodily senses and not just one or two. Making art makes me conscious of my hands again, and all of my work requires time-intensive, redundant movements that remind me that not everything is as instantaneous as a click of a mouse. By weaving together paper, cutting lines, and folding shapes, I manipulate drawings, photos, and prints to create new landscapes for me to explore."

Elise Wehle. Visit her website HERE

In September 2014, artist Elise Wehle and the Turnpike Art Group collaborated on a unique, one-off art piece. Read more HERE

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All artwork, text and images © Turnpike Art Group 2022.

Sown by the Mountain - Making the art

The Turnpike Art Group agreed a special limited contract with artist Elise Wehle, which entitled us to reproduce, by means of stencil, her artwork 'Sown by the Mountain'. The total quantity of reproductions was not to exceed one, as a one-time use.

We liked this approach a great deal. The fascinating 'construction' method for this unique cross-Atlantic collaboration involved the artist sending a digital file to TAG, which was then resized, and printed onto A0 paper sheets. These were then combined into a single composite, roughly 1.5 metres square. Then began the time-intensive process of hand-cutting the intricate design into a delicate paper stencil.

When completed, the stencil was then temporarily glued to the wall in question, before being sprayed with our chosen colour treatment.

Such a process is reminiscent of artists such as Sol LeWitt, and his instruction-based artworks of the early 1970s. A set of detailed instructions allowed a remote group of individuals to work to the artists 'blueprint' and execute a certified artwork without the artist being present.

With Wehle 'pushing' her piece of art to us via the internet, from her studio in Orem, Utah, TAG were then able to receive it in London, and fabricate the work nearly 5,000 miles from its origin.

TAG would like to thank Trea Clenaghan for her generosity and support, in allowing this artwork to be created.