CONDUIT GALLERY

ROBERT JESSUP + LANCE LETSCHER + MATTHEW WHITENACK | THRU MAR01

About CONDUIT GALLERY

Robert Jessup
Lance Letscher
Matthew Whitenack

January 11– March 1, 2025

Robert Jessup
Paintings from Robinwood Lane

Conduit Gallery is honored to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Denton-based artist Robert Jessup. The exhibition of large-scale paintings will be the nineteenth solo exhibition of paintings at Conduit Gallery for the artist since 1993 and mark the first body of work created in his new studio on Robinwood Lane in Denton, Texas. States Jessup of the work, “The residence has changed, the studio is new, and the painting methodology has been largely reinvented. Again. But, the activity of line, the yearning of color the chase of desire that is painting remain the defining drivers of the work.”

New movements in Robert Jessup’s painting methodology have been driven largely by the change in medium. In his over forty-year studio practice, Jessup’s paintings were created solely with oil paint. The Robinwood paintings have all been rendered in acrylic, which not only changes the tonality but the strategy in addressing the composition. The thinned viscosity and faster drying time met Jessup’s impatience for laying down colored layers and improvisatory intuition. Dense areas of color and line create weather patterns that churn across the canvas flowing in what Jessup describes as an “evolving dance of discovery.”

Born in Moscow, Idaho, and raised in Seattle, Robert Jessup received his BFA from the University of Washington in 1975 and his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1979. His work has been exhibited extensively since 1981 and is in numerous private and public collections including the metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the University of Virginia,the University of Texas, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Dallas Museum of Art. He is a Professor Emeritus from the University of North Texas where he taught painting in the College of Visual Arts and Design from 1991 to 2018. From 2019 to 2023, Robert Jessup and his wife, Faith Scott Jessup, relocated to Whidbey Island, Washington and currently live and work in Denton, Texas.

Lance Letscher
Golden Years

Conduit Gallery is honored to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Austin-based artist Lance Letscher. The exhibition paper collages will be the thirteenth solo exhibition at Conduit Gallery for the artist since 1997.

In his new show Golden Years, Lance Letscher holds the tension of the opposites between the literal and the ethereal. Letscher creates visions of the end of a cycle, dreams of an afterlife, and the mystery coursing artistic creation.

There is an “agreed upon reality” and there is world we slip into when we fall asleep. The dream world is both deeply personal and common to all. It is also the entrance to the creative space, creativity that is life itself. [“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2 KJV)] In Golden Years, Letscher explores heavenly architecture and symbolic studios. Works such as Ghostwriter refer to the compelling force that comes through the artist during the creative process. Sometimes bringing the artist to an ecstatic state, the inspired and meticulous cutting is the expression of the work that pulls the viewer in. Built upon old book covers, the viewer may recognize mythological and religious images such angels, owls, lapis lazuli blue, flowers, rocks, water. Working with these
archetypal images, Letscher creates these anew and imbues them with a new spiritual life.

[“That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like
to that which is above.” (Emerald Tablet)]

Lance Letscher lives and works in Austin, TX where he earned a BFA and an MFA from the University of Texas. His work is shown internationally, including recent exhibitions in France, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium and Germany. He is represented by galleries in Paris, France; Santa Fe, NM; New York, NY; Jackson, WY; Austin, TX and Dallas, TX. His work is in museum collections including The McNay, San Antonio, TX; The Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Blanton Museum, Austin and the Tyler Museum, Tyler, TX.

In 2009, the University of Texas Press published a monograph of Letscher’s work, which covered a period of work from 2001-2008. In 2016, the film, “The Secret Life of Lance Letscher” debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival and has continued to screen in various film festivals, museums and film houses nationally, including Ovation TV. Directed by Austin based editor and long-time Richard Linklater collaborator, Sandra Adair, the film is a deeply personal and psychological portrait, edited by Adair with a soundtrack composed by Graham Reynolds.

Whitenack_All Raveled Up and Unwound Too

Matthew Whitenack
Appetites in the Face of Certain Death

Conduit Gallery is honored to announce Appetites in the Face of Certain Death, a solo exhibition and installation of new works by New York based artist, Matthew Whitenack.

“A friend of mine recently told me about missing something and feeling the ‘comet tail of longing’ and the ‘patina of worldly promises / the nudge to hoard something that they love’. Also recently I’ve been reading Spinoza on the train in little bits between the distractions of deranged fits, proselytizing persons, and panhandlers. I shakily underlined this part, “When this striving is related only to the mind, it is called will; but when it is related to the mind and body together it is called appetite. This appetite, therefore, is nothing but the very essence of man from whose nature there necessarily follow those things that promote his preservation and so man is determined to do those things… From all this, then, it is clear that we neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and desire it.” So I’ve been thinking about comet tails and patinas and appetites and desires. And these things lead me to other related things like residue and time and death and urgency and taste and choice and maybe fermentation as well.

If I can’t catch the comet, or can only seize its brilliance for an instant or two, then I have an appetite for sweeping up the dust of its tail and piling it up on a little shelf… I have an appetite for collecting patinas and residues. Gathering a constellation of things that orbit the very essence of man.. things that point to the core.”

– Matthew Whitenack, 12/17/2024

Conduit Gallery
1626 C Hi Line Drive. Dallas, TX 75207 214.939.0064

Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 AM – 5 PM

conduitgallery.com

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