Wells Chandler

Wells Chandler is an American artist born in 1985 in Virginia, they grew up in Texas in a conservative family. They defines itself as a transgender non-binary boi and wishes to be gendered as male. He lives, works and teaches in New York City. Wells Chandler is a painter who uses vernacular materials such as polymer clay, acrylic wool, resin and foam as well as toys and Christmas decorations. Central to his artistic work is drawing, either alone or with others. His primary mediums are crochet, embroidery and cake decorating, which he describes as, “so many marks of the kind of woman I never became.” [1]
 
Wells Chandler’s use of crochet refers as much to the feminist craft tradition of the 1970s as it does to the etymology of the word queer, which, he reminds us, has its origins in the Indo-European root –twerk (which became twist, in English) meaning “oblique” and “twisted.” He explains that “this root is present in the technical process of crocheting, which involves the development of twisting lines of yarn.” [2]
 
His pieces constitute a body of work that aims to deconstruct a truncated art history, an art history that sets a universal white heterosexual male genius as the norm. The theorists of the situated knowledges (Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding) alert us on the concept of universal which often served to impose the point of view of the dominants. According to them, there is no scientific objectivity; only a partial perspective promises an objective vision.
 
Thus, the history of art as a narrative of universal Western culture is nothing more than an allegory of the ideologies that govern liberal and capitalist societies, with genius as the paragon of individual success. It is a generalizing and neutral male point of view that we must abandon in favor of a multitude of points of view situated in bodies and situations experienced or suffered, which transform the gendered, colonial and capitalist ideologies that constitute the history of art.
 
Extract from the text of Pascal Lièvre, St Anthony’s fire, Galerie Eric Mouchet, Paris, 2019 (read more)
 
[1] Jennifer Coates, “Wells Chandler: Pied Piper of Weirdness,” Two Coats of Paint, 2019
[2] Author’s interview with the artist, September 2019
 
Heir to the feminist art history of the 1970s, his brightly coloured crochet-knitted figures explore the notion of Queer and the canons of art history. He received his BFA from Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX) in 2007 and his MFA from Yale University in 2011 where he was awarded the Ralph Mayer Prize.
 
Wells Chandler has recently had solo exhibitions at Dialo Rosso (Panama City, Panama), MOCA Tucson (Tucson, USA), The Union (London, UK), Soloway Gallery (Brooklyn, USA), Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago, USA), Galerie Eric Mouchet (Paris, France). Recent group exhibitions include Olympia (New York, NY), Dee Pre Art Gallery (Holland, MI), The Pensacola Museum of Art (FL), Leslie Lohman Museum of Art (NY), Choi and Lager (Cologne, DE), MOCA Detroit (MI) and Marinaro (NY). His work has been featured in several articles including Roxane Gay’s Art Forum, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, The Huffington Post, TimeOut, Modern Painters, Maake Magazine, Two Coats of Paint and AEQAI. Chandler is a visiting assistant professor at SUNY Purchase. His work is included in numerous public and private collections in the United States and Europe.
 
MORE INFORMATION :
 
// Biography
// Press
// wellschandler.com
 
EXHIBITIONS:
 
// St. Anthony’s Fire (02/01-03/07/2020)
// Cruising Utopia (04/20-07/15/2023 | Brussels)
// Feminist Bird Club Presents: Luncheon on My Ass (05/13-07/15/2023 | Paris)