As artists and curators, Ellen Letcher and Julie Torres are conduits for each other.
Ellen Letcher's paintings, installation, photography, and 3D work offer a slyly profound mirror to our culture. Julie Torres's intensely emotive paintings reveal a surprising sensitivity. They each transcend traditional mediums in their work, combining paint, unusual materials, and scavenged supports. Their artistic collaboration is a testament to the power of partnership, in all its forms.
Letcher's work plumbs the depths of unlikely connection between our shared history, personal biography, the present moment, and an unknowable future. Propelled by compulsive curiosity, she makes sense of seemingly disparate ideas by piecing them together, like a puzzle. Through this work, Letcher beckons viewers to succumb to "the rhythm of becoming" while hurtling through space and time.
Torres' paintings push against the expectation of what a painting is, or does. Acrylic comes straight out of the tube and is mixed directly on the surface or left undisturbed, resulting in crude and imperfect outcomes. Failed attempts are forever fused within the work, often to be resolved much later. 2D paintings can become 3D objects that stand or lean, weighted under years of paint.
Ellen Letcher and Julie Torres met in 2010 at Famous Accountants, the Ridgewood NY gallery that Letcher co-founded in 2009. They moved to Hudson NY together in 2016. In 2018, Letcher and Torres took the reins at LABspace gallery in Hillsdale NY (an artist-run space founded by artist Susan Jennings) as Co-Directors. Through curating and making their own work, they are deeply engaged in the greater Hudson Valley and nyc art communities. Their projects have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, Two Coats of Paint, and on NPR and PBS.
Letcher and Torres have exhibited their work and curated projects at Pocket Utopia, independently and together.
