Art Review
Amplified Art Network, Sarah Opat, Chicago, IL/ 12-2018
Canadian visual artist, Vicky Lentz translates unhindered insight from nature onto several mediums. She creates abstract and contemporary work using steel, clay, acrylic, oil paint, and mixed media on canvas.
The aesthetic of nature inspires Lentz to create from a place of silence and organic movement. She creates limitless, abstract sculptures, paintings, 2-D creations in her studio surrounded in the woods, and public installation pieces displayed in Montreal, Canada.
Lentz listens deeply to the hum of the universe found in the forest surrounding her home in Canada. Living in nature allows for her creativity to connect through different mediums to communicate a new vernacular of abstract art.
Lentz shows regularly in exhibitions in eastern Canada. Her work has shown nationally, internationally and in the United States in Maine and Chicago, Illinois. Lentz continues her growth in her art career to a national level, outside her home province. Ingrid Mueller Art + Concepts represent her work currently in Fredericton and St. Andrews, New Brunswick. Lentz also completed an artist residency at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery this year.
The creative process for Lentz flows with the organic rhythm of life’s cycles. She creates colorful vibrations from the abundance of her environment. A fallen tree in the woods became her art installation in nature. She wrapped the branches in colorful yarn. She connects the fluid aspect of ever changing, constantly in motion, transforming, atoms in motion to environmental canvas, paper, steel, and mixed media.
Her color choices pop off the wall and satisfy the viewer with an abstract smile. Lentz translates her experience in nature as an abstract language on canvas. Each painting overflows with the essence of organic fulfillment and projects a spacious quality of measureless wisdom.
The organic shapes within her art comes through a juxtaposition of unique sculptures in nature, paintings oozing with spacious texture, and public installation pieces where viewers become a part of the creative atmosphere.
Lentz’s color choice beams a light of exploratory contemporary expression. She constantly tries new techniques and materials to express her experience authentically in the world of abstract art.
“I go through phases of color in my work. Sometimes I use recycled metals, rusted metals, bouncing from a neutral color palette to full on color,” said Lentz.
Lentz introduces an abstract energy through the portal of her personal experience within nature. The issue in today’s society highlights the lack of connection with nature. Lentz brings awareness to nature deficit disorder and challenges the viewer to feel the natural organic qualities within her art. She zeros in on the organic detail and intertwines lines of the natural ebb and flow of the universe into her work.
Her paintings drip with creative flow and allowance of positive space to compliment the negative. She creates a silent dialogue of abstract imagery on canvas and through sculptures. The simple line work and brush strokes evoke satisfaction and euphoria.
Living deep in the woods allows Lentz to access the silence in the space of nature to enter an alternative flow. This energy is transferable to the work Lentz creates. She uses communion with nature to inspire the ebb and flow within her paintings and sculptures.
The texture remains remarkable on canvas. She speaks a language of pink lemonade daydream meets a modern twist of honey dipped blues. The line work and jabs of brush marks speak a contemporary language of organic soul meets space captured in time.
As Lentz introduces her upcoming series “Deeply Listening”, she brings the richness of silence to life on canvas. Her use of mix media patterns creates a satisfying feeling of spaciousness within her work.
Lentz views nature as a transparent holographic image to inspire her vessel of work. She goes inside the petals of flowers with observation– Going inside the cells of a petal. Trying to refine by connecting and listening, everything becomes vibrational – A connection to the environment.
“Human condition is not what we live. Going deeper to what’s around us. Not being rushed. I am a witness. My purpose is to be present,” said Lentz, “As an artist, I can transfer what I’m experiencing onto canvas or by welding steel,” said Lentz.
“Original art has vibrations to pick up on. I am here to express the life around me in a sensitive way,” said Lentz, “My art allows you to glimpse the connection.”
The abstract world of contemporary art welcomes the success and deep rooted stillness found within Lentz’s work. She defines a new meaning for mixed media, abstract and contemporary artwork through creating stillness within a world of chaos. Each creation remains fresh and pure.
Lentz creates from the center of truth, nature, and beauty. The truth revealed in nature translates the message of organic beauty within Lentz’s work.
— Sarah Opat, arts writer.