The Center presented Letha Wilson in her first West Coast solo exhibition featuring a brand new body of work. This exhibition was the result of a collaboration with c3:initiative, Sou’Wester, and the Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at PNCA. Together we brought bringing the NY-based artist and sculptural photographer Letha Wilson to the Northwest for two extended visits. In the summer of 2016, Wilson traveled to Eastern Oregon and the Sou’Wester lodge in Seaview, WA as artist-in-residence, which served as her home base as she scouted the area, taking photographs and gathering materials.

She returned to Portland in January 2017 as artist-in-residence at c3:initiative and PNCA, during which she made use of our institutions’ facilities and engage with our artist community to create new photo-based sculptures that react to the Northwest landscape and to the architecture of the Center’s 511 Gallery.

Letha Wilson (b. 1976, Honolulu, HI) lives and works in New York City. Wilson has had recent solo exhibitions at GRIMM, Amsterdam, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Higher Pictures, New York, Galerie Christophe Gaillard, Paris, and Light Work, Syracuse. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at galleries both in the United States and abroad, such as Martos Gallery, New York; Marianne Boesky, New York; Hauser & Wirth, New York; International Center of Photography, New York; Jack Hanley Gallery, New York; OHWOW, Los Angeles. Wilson earned a MFA from Hunter, New York (2003), a BFA from Syracuse University, New York (1998) and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (2009).