Holland Tunnel Gallery is pleased to announce an opening reception for Paulien Lethen’s exhibition, Finale and Beyond. Join us on Friday, September 29 from 6 to 9 pm!
Finale and Beyond will be the last exhibition of Holland Tunnel Newburgh. Paulien Lethen, founder-director of Holland Tunnel Gallery, concludes an eventful history of 26 years that started in 1997, when she organized the first art show in her newly installed garden shed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Dutch-born artist Paulien Lethen is a world traveler. After finishing art academy (Monumental Art) and leaving The Netherlands in the ‘60’s, she has lived under divergent circumstances on different continents: as a permanent resident on the Greek island of Paros (1968-1982), in Kyoto, Japan (several longer periods during the ‘70’s), Manhattan, NY (1982-1987), Williamsburg, Brooklyn (1987-2015). When her beloved neighborhood had become a developer’s paradise, she landed once more in a new place. This time it was Newburgh, NY, in 2016. Lethen’s powerful artworks are clearly influenced by the different places where she lived and lives. Each environment has left its mark in her person and work. It is an interesting experience to make the time travel through the artist’s life. It shows the strength of a woman who created solid ground everywhere, every time, with straightforwardness, humor and no time for nonsense.
In Japan she became influenced by ink paintings and the different approach to composition and space. From the Greek island dancing she adapted the firm and fluid movements and translated them into bold lines and round figures. After moving to New York, she worked as a housepainter to support herself and her two sons, scraping old paint of walls and skimming over surfaces. She gained great control over working with big brushes and skimming knives. The tools she used as a housepainter became favorite art supplies. In Williamsburg, still a rough and raffled neighborhood when she moved there, abandoned car wrecks along the streets provided her with car hoods that she used as three-dimensional canvasses. The earliest work in the exhibition are assemblages made of wood, demantled furniture and other debris found from junk warehouses behind her tiny house, declared uninhabitable, in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Her current work are paintings with bold strokes of high gloss industrial paint, applied with skimming knives and big brushes on refined mulberry paper. About Holland Tunnel Gallery Besides being an artist, Paulien has set herself the goal to provide a platform for art and bring people together. In 1997 she organized the first art show with works of artists friends and herself in her newly installed garden shed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the occasion of the Williamsburg Open Studio Tour. The New York Times put it on the map as ‘one of the quirkiest spaces in Williamsburg’ and ‘the tiniest gallery in the metropolitan area’. A summer extension in Paros, Greece opened in 2000, and was followed by Stairmasters, mega art projects in the staircase of her house next to the Williamsburg gallery (2004-2020). In 2018 Holland Tunnel Newburgh NY was launched.
PAULIEN LETHEN’S PERSONAL NOTES
Finale, and beyond? It is my wish and aim that an organization, foundation or museum will provide Newburgh with a new cultural destination in the gallery space and adjoining park garden. Let there be arts, culture and people! The retrospective of my work is the last exhibition in Holland Tunnel Gallery Newburgh. Don’t miss the final closing party on Sunday November 19 with live music. The gallery in Greece will still be hosting incidental events and exhibitions. As an artist I won’t stop - on the contrary, I will have more time for my own work. I want to thank the artists, friends, family and my partner Bix Lye who have supported me over the years.
Come celebrate with me!