LeNA WOLFF
Artist in Residence
Drawing from American folk-art and craft traditions, the work of Bay Area artist Lena Wolff is at once connected to histories of minimalism, Op art, feminist and political art. Forms of Forms of Forms presents new material and fabrication explorations made during her residency at Local Language, alongside drawings and collages from her studio and archives of her activism.
Longstanding correlations between quilts, democracy, craft, and civic engagement permeate Wolff’s practice. On site at Local Language, Wolff experimented with carved plaster drawings and layered low-relief wood sculptures based on the geometries of lyric quilt patterns that are the visual basis of much of her current work. Over the decades, the iconography of American quilts has evolved into a central focus of her studio activity, in which she regularly translates, repeats, and metamorphosizes quilt patterns into delicate pen drawings, collages made with hand-cut and painted papers, and large-scale wood sculptures in the shape of quilt forms. The patterns represent a visual language often shared between women, passed down for centuries and across communities in our nation’s fraught history, linking the past and the future, the personal and the political. Interwoven with a lexicon of ubiquitous quilt patterns, she often includes new symbols in her work that represent social justice, motifs from nature, queer culture, and the greater universe that is our home. When placed together, a kind of grammar is created, a layered narrative meaning, through the specific arrangements of multiple forms.
Together her work gives rise to an interplay of poetically related images – a call and response – emblematic of the interconnectedness of patterns in the universe, the natural world, and the ongoing pursuit of equality.
Lena Wolff is a visual artist, craftswoman, and activist for democracy who has lived and worked in the Bay Area since the early 1990s. In recent years, in addition to her studio work in drawing, collage and wood sculpture, she generated several widely-visible projects that contribute to civic engagement, including an anti-hate poster campaign in the Bay Area and a public art initiative to boost voter participation that gained national reach in the past three election cycles in the US. Her work has been exhibited across the country and collected by ONE National Lesbian and Gay Archives, the Berkeley Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Oakland Museum of California, the San Francisco History Collection at San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Arts Commission, Alameda County Arts Commission, Cleveland Clinic, University of Iowa Museum, and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, among others. She lives with her wife, artist, teacher, and illustrator, Miriam Klein Stahl and their daughter in the East Bay. On November 12, 2018, Mayor Jesse Arreguin named "Lena Wolff and Miriam Klein Stahl Day" in the city of Berkeley for their work that merges art and civic engagement.
BY LENA WOLFF
CARVED PLASTER; LIMITED EDITION OF 15
20”W X 20”H
This artwork is ready to hang from the reverse with a custom inlayed hardware and is not meant to be framed. Each artwork varies slightly due to the hand made quality of the plaster cast.
Created during Wolff’s residency, each artwork is hand cast plaster and carved with the cnc router. The geometric design is rooted in the iconography of American quilt patterns; an abstracted pattern and symbol of the visual language, passed down for centuries and across communities linking the past and the future, the personal and the political.
*Please inquire for shipping cost; 4 weeks lead time
BY LENA WOLFF
CARVED PLASTER; LIMITED EDITION OF 15
20”W X 20”H
This artwork is ready to hang from the reverse with a custom inlayed hardware and is not meant to be framed. Each artwork varies slightly due to the hand made quality of the plaster cast.
Created during Wolff’s residency, each artwork is hand cast plaster and carved with the cnc router. The geometric design is rooted in the iconography of American quilt patterns; an abstracted pattern and symbol of the visual language, passed down for centuries and across communities linking the past and the future, the personal and the political.
*Please inquire for shipping cost; 4 weeks lead time
BY LENA WOLFF
MAPLE WOOD
42”W X 42”H X 1-3/4”D
This artwork is ready to hang from the reverse with a custom inlayed hardware.
Created during Wolff’s residency, RADIANT WINDOW stems out of a series of low-relief wood sculptures created over the past decade that bring iconic American quilt patterns into the realm of sculpture. These pieces are the most monumental of her translations of quilt motifs and are part of her broader practice in which she regularly translates, adapts, and metamorphosizes a lexicon of quilt patterns into unexpected mediums and material outcomes.This artwork is constructed with natural wood materials that will age over time.
Shipping is not included, please contact for a quote.
BY LENA WOLFF
MAPLE WOOD
38” DIAMETER X 2 1/4”D
This artwork is ready to hang from the reverse with a custom inlayed hardware.
Created during Wolff’s residency, FULL CIRCLE stems out of a series of low-relief wood sculptures created over the past decade that bring iconic American quilt patterns into the realm of sculpture. These pieces are the most monumental of her translations of quilt motifs and are part of her broader practice in which she regularly translates, adapts, and metamorphosizes a lexicon of quilt patterns into unexpected mediums and material outcomes. This artwork is constructed with natural wood materials that will age over time.
Shipping is not included, please contact for a quote.
BY LENA WOLFF
MAPLE WOOD
40”W X 40”H X 1-3/4”D
This artwork is ready to hang from the reverse with a custom inlayed hardware.
Created during Wolff’s residency, DAYBREAK stems out of a series of low-relief wood sculptures created over the past decade that bring iconic American quilt patterns into the realm of sculpture. These pieces are the most monumental of her translations of quilt motifs and are part of her broader practice in which she regularly translates, adapts, and metamorphosizes a lexicon of quilt patterns into unexpected mediums and material outcomes. This artwork is constructed with natural wood materials that will age over time.
Shipping is not included, please contact for a quote.
BY LENA WOLFF
collage with hand-cut and painted papers, watercolor, gouache
14”W X 20”H FRAMED
Custom framed with a bleached walnut faceted cut frame, and Optium glazing. Handmade by Smallworks SF. Shipping is not included, please contact for a quote.
BY LENA WOLFF
ACRYLIC ON WOOD
27”W X 28”H
This artwork is ready to hang from the reverse with a custom inlayed hardware.
Created during Wolff’s residency, the geometric design of this artwork is rooted in the iconography of American quilt patterns; an abstracted pattern and symbol of the visual language, passed down for centuries and across communities linking the past and the future, the personal and the political.
*Please inquire for shipping cost
BY LENA WOLFF
PEN ON PAPER
36-1/2”w x 40-1/2”h framed
CABINET is a composite of 48 pen drawings with brown ink, each drawn on their own square of paper and assembled together in a quilt-like grid formation. The images represent a growing lexicon of motifs that form the basis of many of Wolff's other works in collage and sculpture, with symbolism related to quilts, craft and social justice. The custom frame is painted maple, with raw maple sides, rounded corners, and Optium glazing, handmade by Smallworks SF.
Shipping is not included, please contact for a quote.
BY LENA WOLFF
SCREENPRINT EDITION OF 40, SIGNED AND NUMBERED
13”W X 13”H PAPER SIZE
(NOT FRAMED AS PICTURED - UNFRAMED PRINT ON PAPER). Printed by Nat Swope at Bloom Press in Oakland October 2021
BY LENA WOLFF
COLLAGE WITH HAND-CUT PAPER
25”W X 25”H FRAMED
Painted white wood custom frame with Optium glazing, handmade by Smallworks SF. Shipping is not included, please contact for a quote.
by Lena Wolff
Collage with watercolor and hand-cut papers
35”w x 45”h framed
BLUE SUN is part of an ongoing series of works by Lena Wolff rooted in the iconography of American quilts. The collage is made with squares of hand-painted watercolor paper with hand-cut papers, assembled as a patchwork in a unique variation of a popular pattern called, New York Beauty. The custom frame is bleached walnut with rounded corners with Optium glazing, handmade by Smallworks SF.
Shipping is not included, please contact for a quote.
BY LENA WOLFF
COLLAGE WITH HAND CUT PAPERS
28.5”W X 24.5”H FRAMED
Custom frame painted maple, with raw maple sides, rounded corners, and Optium glazing - handmade by Smallworks SF. Please contact for a shipping quote, shipping is not included.
BY LENA WOLFF
CARVED and PRINTED PLASTER; LIMITED EDITION OF 15
30”W X 30”H
This artwork is ready to hang from the reverse with a custom inlayed hardware and is not meant to be framed. Each artwork varies slightly due to the hand made quality of the plaster cast.
Created during Wolff’s residency, each artwork is hand cast plaster and carved with the cnc router. The geometric design is rooted in the iconography of American quilt patterns; an abstracted pattern and symbol of the visual language, passed down for centuries and across communities linking the past and the future, the personal and the political.
Please contact for a shipping quote; 4 weeks lead time