Dan Welden
There is praise and respect
for one who, rather than looking for fame and glory, perfects
their craft, shares their knowledge and innovates for the
greater good. Dan Welden is such a person. For 40 years Welden
has been making prints and works on paper. He is a painter,
teacher, author and Master Printmaker, collaborating with
artists who include: Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Jimmy Ernst,
Dan Flavin, Esteban Vicente, Kurt Vonnegut, Alfonso Ossorio,
Jane Freilicher, David Salle, Eric Fischl, among others.
Recently, fame has caught up with him and this year alone he has
been invited to participate in 12 events – artist residency in
China, teaching in Mexico and at Haystack School in Maine, juror
in St. Louis and several solo and group exhibits.
Many of the pieces in the exhibit are originals. Starting with
his callographic print, Welden adds graphite and paint to create
a unique work of art that he calls a Hybrid Print. Others are
limited editions of small runs. It is not only his technical
expertise that makes Welden’s work stellar, however; it is his
imagery. Welden’s works are lyrical abstractions that flow
across the paper with a lightness and a sense of space that we
can get lost in. Several pieces seem like enlarged sections of a
map with its varying terrains, but of where. Welden’s color,
line and texture combine to evoke a sense of the familiar rather
than location, of feelings of space rather than place. In this
work we can venture with Welden into the unexplored topography
of his imagination.
Welden’s work has been shown in over 65 international solo
exhibitions in museums and galleries and over 500 group
exhibitions in the U.S., Europe, China, Australia, New Zealand
and Peru. His work is in many public and private collections
throughout the country including the Amity Art Foundation,
Darien, Connecticut; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Portland
Museum of Art, Oregon; and Temple University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Welden is the originator of a non-toxic
printmaking technique called the Solarplate method and the
Director of Hampton Editions, Ltd. in Sag Harbor, Long Island.
