Screening Tonight: The Secret Life of Lance Letscher

Tonight's screening of The Secret Life of Lance Letscher will be followed by a Q&A with artist Lance Letscher and director Sandra Adair. Arrive early, seating is limited.

Artist's Reception

TAI Modern presents Figure 8: New Works by Lance Letscher, a solo exhibition by renowned collage artist, Lance Letscher.

Letscher’s world is one filled with color and detail, allowing the viewer to enter a piece and stay a while. As Erin Keever, writer from Austin, Texas, notes, “These collages demand intense and prolonged looking.”

Inspired by Elliot Smith’s album of the same name, Figure 8 showcases the dense overlapping compositions and the witty and poetic juxtaposition of images that has become a signature in Letscher’s work. The pieces in Figure 8 explore the artist’s ongoing interest in texture, color, and composition through ornithological and environmental imagery, inspired by a trip to the Texas coast. In discussing his recent work, Letscher said, “I’ve really tried to knuckle down and make the cutting more expressive and more intricate.”

This discipline and dedication to the cacophonous whole is readily apparent in “Parrots Under a Bridge,” where twenty-seven different birds can be counted. These birds hide like a game of I-Spy among the different elements of vegetation and architecture, against a backdrop of bright red florals.

Letscher was trained as a printmaker at the University of Texas art school, where he received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. In the 1980s, he began to attract interest from the Dallas art scene for his small sculptures, before transitioning to drawing, printmaking, and eventually collage. He has been exhibited extensively both domestically and internationally. In 2004, a mid-career retrospective of the artist’s work entitled Books and Parts of Books: 1996-2004 traveled to four museums. In 2009, the University of Texas Press published a full-length monograph of his work. He is also the author of the children’s book, The Perfect Machine.

In 2017, Letscher was the subject of an illuminating documentary chronicling his life and studio practice called “The Secret Life of Lance Letscher,” directed by Sandra Adair. TAI Modern hosts a free screening of this documentary at the Violet Crown Santa Fe, on Thursday, May 25, 6 – 7:30pm with a Q&A with both Adair and Letscher following.