Join us for the opening of Rainer Maria Wehner's gallery exhibition at the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center on September 5th, 2025 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. The show will be available for viewing in our gallery during business hours until September 28th, 2025.
Artist Statement:
From the start of my professional practice, I combined text and X-rays of human bodies in three-dimensional steel constructions. I have used cutouts, distortion, and exaggeration of scale to visualize and eternalize the structure of the written word as a basis of form and meaning, rather than have a conventional system of signs or structures taken for granted. That is why I work with the widely illegible old German cursive handwriting Sütterlin. The same way I use structures of human bodies like X-rays or outdated Scintigrams in combination.
Both X-rays and whole-body scans from airports demonstrate human intimacy in a technical and growing virtual world. The fragmented unreadable text from the Old Testament prophecy combined with luminous images is a metaphor for intertwining human spirit and archetypes.
RMW
Artist Bio:
Born in Munich, Germany, Rainer Maria Wehner received his MFA degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and Art History at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. He has lived and worked in Germany, New Zealand and in 2003 traveled to the New York to be an artist-in-residence at Sculpture Space in Utica, where he remains a permanent resident.
His resume boasts over twenty solo exhibitions, and is the recipient of numerous international awards and grants. Wehner is also an art educator. Based in the State Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany, he successfully developed and taught a course in experimental art for a decade. He moved to Berlin to work in the Bildhauer Werkstatt, an international workspace for artists. In the USA he has been an invited lecturer at Syracuse University, Pratt-Munson School of Art & Design, Cazenovia College, Onondaga Community College, Hamilton College, Utica University and SUNY where he remains in this capacity. He has worked as a museum and gallery preparator at Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute, The Warehouse Gallery and Point of Contact Gallery in Syracuse, New York.
Public Works include; Grifiss Sculpture Park and Utica College in Utica and Rome NY and Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY.
Wehner’s work has been exhibited in Germany, France, Italy and in the USA. Multiple monographs and catalogues featuring his work have been published in Germany and in the USA.
www.RainerMariaWehner.com