Two of Lance Letscher's trio of color collages
at Conduit's new gallery were subtle and superb.
We first saw Lance Letscher's work at the opening of Conduit's Design District gallery in the spring of 2002. We were entranced at its subtle juxtapositions, wonderful colors and loose, hand-made qualities.
Lance Letscher - White Book, 2002
collage on masonite - 5 x 7.75 inches
I found this sliced up book in a back room with the door wide open sometime during the run of the new Conduit's second show that summer. It was like discovering a treasure trove.
Letscher's Textures Lance Letscher - New Work in Cut Paper (detail above) and Christopher Schade - Figurative Forms, as well as video by Alex Villar in the Project Room, at Conduit through February 15, 2003
Lance is one of my favorite artists — See his Artists Worth Watching page — so I had to visit Conduit in the bitter cold of winter to watch his work. Standing back to see them is largely unrewarding. Although some of the pieces, like the star piece above is actually pretty to see from afar, many aren't.
Up close, however, is where all the muted colors and myriad textures get synesthetically delicious. All this meticulous — obsessive — paper and other materials cutting and collaging may not give up its secrets easily, but the colors and especially the almost touchable — I looked around for the gallery person — she wasn't watching. But the work is behind glass. Darn. I want to touch.
Uh... Touchable textures topple over the mostly mediocre — compositions of this very popular — red dots all around the big gallery in back — artist.
I was careful to shoot the numbers after documenting each piece, but I didn't grab a price list on the way out (Merc Ret!), so I can't tell you which piece is which. It hardly matters. Go look for yourself.
Another disappointment is that he's not from around here. Darn again. I wanted him to be a Dallas artist. Still... -JRC
See our short (so far) page of Lance Letscher creations
on his DallasArtsRevue Artists Watch page.
