Leigh Wells, "Tensile Strength" Catalog

L E I G H W E L L S

T E N S I L E S T R E N G T H

The Fourth Wall Gallery

September 2 to October 22, 2022

Raw canvas, wrinkled and lightly painted. 
 Solid blocks of color… taken apart and then lovingly stitched back together to form new shapes. Wells’ works remind me of mending 
 a relationship or constructing a new identity. Maybe it’s their delicate simplicity or the 
 slight melancholy of the palette, but there is something stoic about these minimalist sewn collages that are quietly stronger than the 
 sum of their parts.

—Mark Taylor, SF/Arts Curator

Eclipse, (LW210802), 2021, acrylic, gesso and latex on pieced found fabric, 52.5" x 46"

Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented—which is 
 what fear and anxiety do to a person—
 into something whole.

—Louise Bourgeois

Well, (LW220607), 2022, acrylic, flashe and latex on pieced found fabric, 24" x 24"

Bet, (LW220602), 2022, acrylic, latex and thread on pieced found fabric, 20" x 17"

As Above, (LW220603), 2022, acrylic, spray paint and thread on pieced found fabric, 40" x 20.5"

Specter, (LW210804), 2021, acrylic, gesso and latex on pieced found fabric, 30" x 24"