Wendy Kowynia
Artist Statement
My interests lie in the iterative nature of time and existence: the accretion of moment upon moment, memory upon memory, thread upon thread. When a series of similar actions accrete they construct more complex patterns. My engagement in the act of accretion is an opportunity to connect with and consider the ideas and activities that underlie and construct our complex realities.
My favorite tool is a simple floor loom. The loom provides for a specific quality of exploration: the intersection of the horizontal and the vertical. It is a grid where interactions take place between the spiritual and the material, the seen and unseen.
The Line Drawing: Ode to Agnes series is based on the grid structures of Agnes Martin’s ‘On a Clear Day’ series of prints (1973). Martin dedicated her practice to the exploration of these essential grids. Like her, I find that a simple structure or logarithm generates infinite possibilities.
Artist Bio
Wendy Kowynia has lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado since 1990. Her studio is a small repurposed coal shed adjacent to her home. She works with a diverse group of materials sourced primarily in Asia: unique yarns produced in small quantities, sometimes by hand; made from paper, pine, linen, silk, and steel. She weaves these yarns into grids which are then colored with graphite, charcoal, inks and paint. Her current works focus on threads acting like lines, in grid and print form.
Wendy’s career in textiles began with wearables; she previously showed her work at the Santa Fe Weaving Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the last ten years her focus has shifted from the body to the wall, exploring materials and techniques that unite her textile background with her undergraduate focus in painting. Wendy has exhibited widely in the United States in juried and invitational exhibitions.
Selected Exhibitions
2018 Materials Hard & Soft, 3rd Place Award, juried fine craft exhibition, Greater Denton Arts Council, Denton, Texas.
2018 Informed: Print as Influence, group show, Space Gallery, Denver
2017 Patterns of the West, 4-person show, Eleanor Bliss Center, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
2017 West Gallery, Wendy Kowynia: Recent Works,Steamboat Springs CO, Solo show
2017 Wichita National All Media Exhibition, national juried show, Wichita, Kansas
2014 Fiber, Clay, Ink + Paper, group show, Eleanor Bliss Center, Steamboat Springs, CO
2013 Modest x 4, group show, Abecedarian Gallery, Denver, CO
2013 Materials Hard & Soft, juried exhibition, Greater Denton Arts Council, Denton, TX
2012 Modest in Scale, national juried exhibition of small-scale artworks, Abecedarian Gallery, Denver, CO, Best of Show
2012 Time Capsule, Santa Fe Weaving Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2011 National Fiber Directions, Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, KS
2010 Eye Dazzlers, 3D fiber art show, Handweavers Guild of America Convergence, Albuquerque, NM, First Place
2010 New Fibers Exhibition, juried national show, Fiber Arts Network, Ypsilanti, MI
2009 Fiber Celebration, Northern Colorado Weavers Guild, juried exhibit, Second Place
2009 Light Translations, Artists’ Gallery of Steamboat, Steamboat Springs, CO
