Travels Inward
Wendy Letven and Gary Fredriksen

“… The traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had.”
– Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

The artists Wendy Letven and Gary Fredriksen each create work exploring our relationship with the natural environment. Avid hikers, during the pandemic their wooded journeys became almost ritualistic aspects of their daily lives, sustaining their sense of well-being and inspiring their most current work.

Both artists work in sculpture, however, with her background in painting, Letven thinks of her 3- dimensional works primarily as drawings in space, blurring the line between flatness and form. In her paintings, wall sculptures and suspended works a sense of motion and energy evokes the ephemeral aspects of time and change.

Fredriksen is a sculptor through and through. He uses actual found organic material to create his bronze, cement and acrylic castings. Transformation and discovery are themes in the work, as well as opposing feelings of alienation from nature ever-present in the human psyche.