"The state of double-consciousness manifests itself through apparent inconsistencies. [...] Lehene’s art draws significance from the temporary suspension between two states, two places, two time zones and two cultural positionings, which speak of his experiences as a contemporary voyager, perpetually en route, having his senses poked by both the unfamiliar and the recognizable. [...] This approach seems incongruous with his aspiration to construct, to build more substantial structures [...]. His preoccupation with the temporary also seems ill fitting when it comes to his attempt to dig out biographical and cultural archaeologies and lay them at the foundation of identity constructions.
And yet, this apparent mismatch coalesces into a coherent edifice. What starts as ephemeral buries down into the primordial stratum and retransforms it. Layer upon layer and structure upon structure slowly assemble a personal history as part of a larger social narrative. The individual and the world interconnect through presences and absences. Assemblages such as these require an archaeological investigation, though which the artist attempts to stem the inevitable liquidity (to use Zygmund Bauman’s term) of postmodern identity constructions.
There is no fixed home, no clear destination [...]" (Ruxandra Trandafoiu)
Looking at these paintings, one can sense that each canvas is a searchingly honest exploration of this paradoxical fact. The search is conducted within oneself and outside of oneself at the same time—as if, in the end, there were any difference. The inner and the outer are one. We might note how attuned Marius Lehene’s paintings are to those structures we see that also are structures obstructing sight. The woods. Scaffolding. Chain link fence. Lace curtains. To see is also to see against and to see through. But it takes an artist of rare insight to know that what obstructs vision is also what invites it, and the obstacle is also a gift worth recording, honoring, celebrating. Now perhaps we can feel the achievement in what we see here. An attempt to see that is itself a form of life, that knows to narrow focus is to tell a lie. And honesty looks different than we might guess. Not a single shining form—but the bright-dark, dark-bright, sweet-bitter, all-moment any lived experience is. Even the experience you’re having now, seeing how these paintings see, looking at their looking, living with them the life they live.
(Dan Beachy-Quick)
Education
Master of Fine Arts - Painting & Drawing, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, 2001
Bachelor of Arts, College of Economics, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 1996
Work towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Art and Design - Cluj, Romania, 1995-1998
Recent Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions
2024 Other Lives / Alte Vieți – with Cristian Porumb, Mihail Tomescu, Muzeul National de Arta, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2022 Untitled, Viewing Room 17, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, curated by Szilard Gaspar
2021 To draw lines between one thing and another, Dan Beachy-Quick and Marius Lehene, PPL_PRJCT, Fort Collins, Colorado, catalogue
2021 Aerial Roots, Robert & Elaine Stein Galleries, Wright State University, Ohio, catalogue
2018 Provisional, Casa Matei Gallery, University of Art and Design, Cluj, Romania
2016 Variance, Whitney Center for the Arts, Sheridan College, Sheridan, Wyoming
2015 Under Construction, Chapman Gallery, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas
2013 John Dickinson, Marius Lehene: Recent Work, Ice Cube Gallery, Denver, Colorado
2012/13 Random Walk with Drift, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, Colorado
2012 Sum Over Histories, Ice Cube Gallery, Denver, Colorado
2012 Drive Through, Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder, Colorado
Selected Recent Group Exhibitions & Curatorial Work
2024 Kim Garcia & Ajean Ryan, a Dinghy Rig show, at 2024 TRYST Art Fair, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, California, co-curated with Aitor Lajarin-Encina
2023 Dinghy Rig artists from Colorado - Marina Kassianidou, Jennie Kiessling, John Dickinson, Aitor Lajarin, Marius Lehene, 2023 TRYST Art Fair, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, California, co-curated with Aitor Lajarin-Encina
2023 New American Paintings – West, issue #168, exhibition in print, juror Vivian Li, Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art – Dallas Museum of Art
2023 ArtMarket Budapest 2023 – art fair, part of ViewingRoom17 show, curated by Szilard Gaspar, Budapest, Hungary, October 2023
2023 RAD Art Fair, with ViewingRoom17, curated by Szilard Gaspar, Bucharest, Romania, May 2023
2023 Rocky Mountain Triennial, Museum of Art – Fort Collins, Colorado
2023 John Dickinson and Mark Dineen - Encounters at the End of Art, Dinghy Rig Gallery, Fort Collins, Colorado (co-curator with Aitor Lajarin)
2023 Del Harrow - White Cube, Dinghy Rig Gallery, Fort Collins, Colorado (co-curator with Aitor Lajarin)
2023 Form Porn, Dinghy Rig Gallery, Fort Collins, Colorado (co-curator with Aitor Lajarin)
2023 Cellular, a collaboration between Sarah McKenzie, Aitor Lajarin-Encina, and Marius Lehene, Dinghy Rig Gallery, Fort Collins, Colorado
2023 Micrologies, Gregory Allicar Museum, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, curated by Aitor Lajarin-Encina
2022 Adventure Painting, exhibition of artworks made during the COVID-19 Pandemic, co-curated by Johnny Defeo and Aaron Zulpo, including artists: Daniel M. Granitto, Chris Kannen, Grace Kennison, Aitor Lajarain-Encina, Marius Lehene, Robert Martin, Erika Osborne, Mike Piggott, Raychael Stine, Tracy Stuckey, Johnny Defeo, and Aaron Zulpo – Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder, Colorado
2022 ArtMarket Budapest 2022 – art fair, part of the display of Viewing Room 17 – Cluj, curated by Szilard Gaspar, Budapest, Hungary
2022 El Humo, collaboration with Aitor Lajarin and Del Harrow, featured in La Perspectiva – Aitor Lajarin-Encina, Galeria Artnueve, Murcia, Spai
2020 Still Utopia: Islands, exquisite corpse exhibition, Gallery MC, New York, curator Gorazd Poposki, concept by Simonetta Moro and Aga Ousseinov
2019 Form, CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea, curator Leejin Kim
2019 Art in Times of Anxiety, A.D. Gallery, University of North Carolina – Pembroke, North Carolina, juror Ralph Steeds, Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina
2019 PaperWest, Gittins Gallery, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, curator Judith Brodsky, founder of Rutgers Center for Innovative Print & Paper, co-founder Rutgers Center for Women in Arts and Humanities
2018/19 CauseArt: Marius Lehene, Collin Parson, and Joel Swanson, Google Boulder, Colorado, curated by Chelsea Pohl, Sean Peuquet, and Ingrid Walsh
2018 New American Paintings –West, exhibition in print, juror Valerie Oliver, Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas