My paintings and works on paper are about awareness of the natural world—becoming progressively, cyclically more present to its rhythms, gaining deeper understanding of its design, and acquiring direct experiential knowledge of its mysterious beauty.
Since 2001, I have been making contour line drawings of plants. From the drawings, I isolate silhouette shapes that I cut out of paper and use as stencils to make oil paintings and works on paper – or cut out of metal to make sculptures. My work is cumulative in nature – gradually marking time and seasonal change, unity and variety, individual and collective beauty.
CONTACT
carlyle@carlylelee.com
662/801-5323
2017 VISUAL ARTS AWARD / MISSISSIPPI INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
It is my great honor to present the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Visual Arts Award to Carlyle Wolfe. Among an exceptionally strong group of talented candidates, Wolfe’s work stood out for its beauty, complexity, and depth. Her evocations of the natural world through both silhouette and pattern move from drawings to paintings to installations. She exploits the potential of each medium creating three connected but distinctive bodies of work. Wolfe’s watercolors record nature’s layered linearity in pared-down drawings that invoke a graphic tradition extending back to Albrecht Dürer’s plant studies. That same intricacy is captured in her rich canvases combining immersive pattern and subtle coloration. Wolfe’s installation pieces then shift away from that density to a more lyrical use of organic shapes and shadows recalling late Matisse cut-outs. The artist clearly delights in the visual effects of each approach and in the boundless potential of light, shape, color, and shade.
— Christine Coulson, Chief Advisor to the Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where she has worked for twenty-two years.
2017 DELTA AWARD / DELTA EXHIBITION / ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER
This installation by Carlyle Wolfe, likewise, liberates pressed leaves and flowers from the constrictions of being smothered and bound within pages of a book. Wolfe’s title, with its double entendre, leaves unanswered the question of whether these leaves are falling, or are simply embracing the autumnal breezes that cast them around us. These leaves and petals dance, they sparkle, and they shimmer with a material more often associated with the earth and permanence than with the transitory lives of leaves or blossoms of a shrub. This environment created by Wolfe takes the ordinary and makes it splendid, takes fragility and gives it strength, and takes the hidden and makes it large and triumphant. John Keats wrote a powerful poem called, “To Autumn,” in which he celebrates that exact moment when a piece of fruit is its ripest, which is also, of course, the final moment before its fall and decay. Wolfe has also frozen these leaves in a permanent dance, delighting in their freedom from the plants that held them, but never letting them touch the ground or disintegrate. When Todd Herman asked me which of the artworks in the exhibition I’d like to live with in my home, I quickly chose this one. Wouldn’t it feel like magic to emerge from our nests in the dreamy world of sleep THROUGH this installation into the lively, exhilarating world which we inhabit every day? To know that we have staved off decline and are holding onto the joy of the journey for yet one more day? I know I would enjoy the journey more if this was the portal. Thank you, Carlyle, for capturing this moment with such glory.
— Betsy Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Museum of Art and Juror of the 59th Annual Delta Exhibition
2008 VISUAL ARTS AWARD / MISSISSIPPI INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
Carlyle Wolfe's The Little House series of oil on panel paintings represent a consistently focused, but visually varied exploration of Wolfe's very poetic vision. They draw upon her enthusiasm for nature's vocabulary of form revealed by the artist in compositions infused with light. If I were to select one work of particular distinction from the series, it would be #9 (24" x 40"). It entirely sums up the virtues of her creative approach. She uses a variety of silhouettes and linear elements taken directly from the physical world of Mississippi, layered in dense, sometimes spatially illusionist combinations, all filtered through a true colorist's vision. The resulting paintings are unabashedly beautiful, yet somehow mysterious and personal, in their ode in praise of the beauty of a harmonious nature which is a bit wild and totally unspoiled by civilization. It is an attitude not unrelated to America's first great landscape painters active in the Hudson River area generations ago. The spiritual allure of nature they share, but the tension between surface and illusion in her paintings and Wolfe's very subjective color palette are very much those of a modernist artist of today.
— Paul W. Richelson, Assistant Director and Chief Curator of the Mobile Museum of Art
Curriculum Vitae
CARLYLE WOLFE LEE
Born 1977 Gainesville, Florida
EDUCATION
2004 / MFA / Louisiana State University
2000 / BFA / University of Mississippi, McDonnell-Barksdale Honors College
Summer 2000 / University of Georgia
Spring 1999 / Cortona Italy Study Abroad Program, University of Georgia
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 / Repeat the Sounding Joy / in Collaboration with Thad Lee / Spalding Nix Fine Art / Atlanta, Georgia
2023 / Marking Time / Walter Anderson Museum / Ocean Springs, Mississippi
2022 / Golden / David Lusk Gallery / Nashville, Tennessee
2021 / Murmurations / in Collaboration with Thad Lee / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2021 / Spalding Nix Fine Art / Atlanta, Georgia
2020 / Zinnias / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2020 / Anniversary / Cole Pratt Gallery / New Orleans, Louisiana
2019 / Full Bouquet / David Lusk Gallery / Nashville, Tennessee
2017 / Green / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2017 / Garden / David Lusk Gallery / Nashville, Tennessee
2016 / Fall / David Lusk Gallery / Nashville, Tennessee
2016 / Their line has gone out through all the earth / Mallory/Wurtzburger Galleries, Dixon Gallery and Gardens / Memphis, Tennessee
2015 / Their line has gone out through all the earth / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2015 / Fall / Coat Check Gallery Installation / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2014 / Until the day breathes: Paintings / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2013 / Until the day breathes: Watercolors / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2011 / Seasons / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2010 / Seasons / Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Center / Ocean Springs, Mississippi
2009 / Paintings and Works on Paper / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2008 / Paintings and Works on Paper / The Levy Gallery, St. Mary's Episcopal School / Memphis, Tennessee
2007 / Paintings and Works on Paper / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2006 / Paintings / University of Charleston / Charleston, West Virginia
2005 / Leaves / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2004 / Zinnias / M.F.A. Exhibition / School of Art Gallery / Louisiana State University / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 / White Christmas / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2023 / Ensemble / Spalding Nix Fine Art / Atlanta, Georgia
2023 / Force of Nature / Carlyle Wolfe Lee & Audra Weaser / Samuel Owen Gallery / Greenwich, Connecticut
2022 / Samuel Owen Gallery / Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Fair / Palm Beach, Florida
2021 / Ensemble / Spalding Nix Fine Art / Atlanta, Georgia
2021 / Mississippi Invitational / Mississippi Museum of Art / Jackson, Mississippi
2020 / Ensemble / Spalding Nix Fine Art / Atlanta, Georgia
2020 / Send Help / Levee Contemporary / Princeton, Wisconsin
2019 / Spring Greens / Spalding Nix Fine Art / Atlanta, Georgia
2019 / Meditations on the Landscape in Art and Literature / University of Mississippi Museum / Oxford, Mississippi
2019 / Floral / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2018 / Harvest Supper Exhibition and Art Auction / University of Mississippi Museum / Oxford, Mississippi
2018 / Daily Art / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee
2018 / Imaginary Friends / Spalding Nix Gallery / Atlanta, Georgia
2017 / 59th Annual Delta Exhibition / Juror: Betsy Bradley / Arkansas Arts Center / Little Rock, Arkansas
2017 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee
2017 / Harvest Supper Exhibition and Art Auction / University of Mississippi Museum/ Oxford, Mississippi
2016 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee
2016 / Mississippi Landscape / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2016 / Harvest Supper Exhibition and Art Auction / University of Mississippi Museum / Oxford, Mississippi
2015 / Patterns of Regeneration / Curator: Carla Hanzal / New Gallery of Modern Art / Charlotte, North Carolina
2015 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee
2014 / Aquaflora / Curator: Tommie Rodgers / Lauren Rogers Museum / Laurel, Mississippi
2014 / Aquaflora / University of Southern Mississippi Museum / Hattiesburg, Mississippi
2014 / Oxford Painters / The Cedars / Jackson, Mississippi
2014 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee
2014 / Art Department Faculty Exhibition / Gertrude Ford Center / University of Mississippi / Oxford, Mississippi
2014 / ArtSpace 86 / Jackson, Mississippi
2013 / University of Mississippi Faculty Exhibition / Meridian Museum of Art / Meridian, Mississippi
2013 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2013 / Drawings / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2013 / Art by Choice / Mississippi Museum of Art / Jackson, Mississippi
2013 / Miniature / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2012/ Art by Choice / Mississippi Museum of Art / Jackson, Mississippi
2012 / Drawings / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2012 / The Carnival of Animals / University of Mississippi Museum / Oxford, Mississippi
2012 / Mississippi Art Faculty Juried Exhibition / Juror: Miranda Lash / Lauren Rogers Museum of Art / Laurel, Mississippi
2012 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2011 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2011 / Art by Choice / Mississippi Museum of Art / Jackson, Mississippi
2010 / Works by Melody Guichet with Carlyle Wolfe and Jacob Botter / Shaw Center for the Arts / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2010 / Art by Choice / Mississippi Museum of Art / Jackson, Mississippi
2010 / It's Your World: A Contemporary Take on Traditional Landscape / Wiregrass Museum of Art / Dothan, Alabama
2009 / Under Thirty-Five / Highlands Art Gallery / Jackson, Mississippi
2009 / Carlyle Wolfe and Kathryn Morris / Gallery Twenty-Six 09 / Jackson, Mississippi
2009 / Faculty Exhibition / Gallery 130 / University of Mississippi / Oxford, Mississippi
2009 / Paperworks / Juror: Maura Heffner / B.J. Spoke Gallery / Huntington, New York
2009 / Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition / Lauren Rogers Museum of Art / Laurel, Mississippi
2009 / Mississippi Art Faculty Juried Exhibition / Lauren Rogers Museum of Art / Laurel, Mississippi
2008 / 51st Annual Delta Exhibition / Juror: Eleana Del Rio / Arkansas Arts Center / Little Rock, Arkansas
2008 / Holiday Show / Highlands Art Gallery / Jackson, Mississippi
2008 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2008 / 22nd Juried Fine Arts Exhibition / Cottonlandia Museum / Greenwood, Mississippi
2008 / Generation X: Post-Boomers and the New South / Curators: Lisa Gadel Johnston, Donan Klooz, Tommy McPherson, Paul W. Richelson / Mobile Museum of Art / Mobile, Alabama
2007 / 50th Annual Delta Exhibition / Juror: James Surls / Arkansas Arts Center / Little Rock, Arkansas
2007 / Adjunct Faculty Exhibition / University of Mississippi Museum / Oxford, Mississippi
2007 / The Price Is Right / David Lusk Gallery / Memphis, Tennessee
2007 / Mississippi Invitational / Juror: Sue Spaid / Mississippi Museum of Art / Jackson, Mississippi
2006 / 21st Juried Fine Arts Exhibition / Cottonlandia Museum / Greenwood, Mississippi
2005 / Mississippi Art Faculty Juried Exhibition / Juror: Erin Barnett / Lauren Rogers Museum / Laurel, Mississippi
2005 / Alumni Reunion Exhibition / Juror: Tracey Bashkoff / University of Mississippi Museum / Oxford, Mississippi
2004 / 99: An Unusual Art Sale / Louisiana State University / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2004 / Lineage: A Painting Exhibition / Louisiana State University / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2003 / Graduate Student Exhibition / Louisiana State University / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2003 / 99: An Unusual Art Sale / Louisiana State University / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2002 / Graduate Student Exhibition / Louisiana State University / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2001 / Baton Rouge Juried Exhibition / Juror: Bill Jenson / Louisiana State University / Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2001 / University of Mississippi Alumni Show / Southside Gallery / Oxford, Mississippi
2000 / B.F.A. Exhibition with Kathryn Harper / Bryant Hall Gallery / University of Mississippi / Oxford, Mississippi
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2017 / Visual Arts Award / Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters
2017 / Delta Award / 59th Annual Delta Exhibition / Arkansas Arts Center
2017 / Artist's Mini-Grant / Mississippi Arts Commission
2016 / Art in Embassies Program / U.S. Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique
2016 / Artist's Mini-Grant / Mississippi Arts Commission
2015 / Visual Arts Fellowship / Mississippi Arts Commission
2013 / Artist's Mini-Grant / Mississippi Arts Commission
2010 / Visual Arts Fellowship / Mississippi Arts Commission
2008 / Visual Arts Award / Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters
2006 / Rob and Leath Spiller Award / Cottonlandia Museum of Art
2005 / Visual Arts Fellowship / Mississippi Arts Commission
2005 / Award of Excellence / Mississippi Arts Faculty Juried Exhibition
TALKS
2019 / Meditations on the Landscape in Art and Literature Symposium / "Ways of Seeing the Landscape" / Moderator: Julian Rankin with Painters: John Alexander, Jason Bouldin, William Dunlap, and Carlyle Wolfe / March 27, 2019 / University of Mississippi Museum / Oxford, Mississippi
2016 / Plant Drawings: Marking Time / Munch and Learn Lecture / June 8, 2016 / Dixon Gallery and Gardens / Memphis, Tennessee
PUBLICATIONS
2023 / "Landscape as Subject" / American Landscapes: Meditations of Art and Literature in a Changing World/ Edited by Ann J. Abadie and J. Richard Gruber / University of Mississippi Press / 2023
RELATED EMPLOYMENT
2005-2014 / Adjunct Professor of Art / University of Mississippi