![]() ![]() "The funny thing is," Letscher says of his earlier pieces, "when I was doing that work, I really liked it. There is not as much of a psychological pressure inside of these."įor Letscher, the change from his usual "dark, oppressive" palette to "work that is more inviting" was a "fantastic and exciting" outgrowth of a rejiggered lifestyle. He notes of these pieces, "the way the color interacts, and the way the sense of space is created, has gotten stronger. These include a gigantic metal hand stapled to a wood board, a motorcycle helmet (one of Letscher's favorite objects) covered in medieval religious imagery, and several miniatures featuring mesmeric optical illusions. In addition to "letting up" on the heavy, radiating spirals which are known as one of his signatures, his newest material contains "an upbeat energy that didn't have before."īetween the "New Work From the Late Middle Ages" exhibition in town and the luminous "Untroubled Mind" show in Wyoming, Letscher has handcrafted more than 35 of these "brighter" and "more upbeat" works in a matter of months. "Sometimes it takes a long time – a piece will come back from a gallery where it's been since 2006, so I'll take it and begin to work on it more." But the last few years have seen an undeniable evolution in the thematic and aesthetic essences of his compositions. "I do not allow myself to stop working until there is something in a piece that validates its existence," he says. His hyperkinetic installations have always required of him an exacting, sometimes obsessive focus. ![]() It is a challenge to picture this workhorse, whose hypnotic collages often require him to dig through hundreds of pounds of discarded materials for a single visual morsel, increasing his activity by a scintilla. Letscher has adjusted an already prolific output to compensate for what may soon be overabundant attention: "I've been working exceptionally hard lately, making a lot of work and putting a lot more energy into it than usual." Of this major moment in his 30-year career, he says, "Sometimes you really have to hustle. Clark Gallery in Austin and the Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyo., this visionary is cautiously priming himself for his entrée into mainstream visibility. Now, with a new documentary about his life's work, The Secret Life of Lance Letscher, having its premiere at South by Southwest this month, as well as contemporaneous solo shows at the Stephen L. he then proceeds to slice, mold, bend, tear, and staple thousands of them together into a large symmetrical eye – a sort of colossal steampunk Sauron. It nonetheless remained a challenge for Letscher to live comfortably in this ever-more-expensive city, despite his works' acceptances into the Blanton Museum of Art, the Austin Museum of Art (now the Contemporary Austin), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.Īdair’s film captures Letscher at the beginning of a hunt for colorful metal discards. Letscher eventually took his practice full-time in the early 2000s, a period when he might be exhibiting at three major galleries in Austin simultaneously. After dabbling in the classical practices of drawing and painting, he began putting loose paper, bits of metal, and other miscellanea into colorful assemblages. Letscher has lived and worked in the city for most of his life, including a tenure as a graduate student at the University of Texas in the Eighties. I have an IQ that hovers between 69 and 123, and that is kindly," he jokes. They were putting their hands on my chest, saying 'You're such a genius!' That comment is so far afield. Each of the three times, the person was so slobberingly drunk, it was embarrassing. ![]() "I have been called a genius three times. Letscher swats off the praise he gets at exhibitions of his work as if compliments were gnats. He isn't given to boasting about his projects, elaborate found-material collages and sculptures, although many of his pieces are housed in permanent collections at museums around the world. Wolfson)Īt work in his kaleidoscopically colorful home studio in Central Austin, artist Lance Letscher is reserved, precise, and unflaggingly polite. ![]()
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