The Bower: Native Garden and Sculpture Park, the Dina Wind Art Foundation, and the Bridgette Mayer Gallery are pleased to announce Dina Wind: Urban Garden, a solo exhibition featuring 12 of Dina Wind’s outdoor sculptures from the 1980s and 1990s.
The exhibition will be on view from Wednesday, May 4 to Saturday, October 15, 2022, forming an állee of sculptures near the visitor center at The Bower.
As an ‘urban gardener,’ Wind created her own exotic collection of plants, made from steel that she rescued and repurposed from cast-off industrial and commercial scrap. Wind worked in both Stainless and Carbon Steel, two materials that required unique welding techniques and created different, but equally arresting, bodies of work. Together, these outdoor sculptures, displayed on grass or flagstone, were ambitious and defining works for the maverick Lady Welder. They helped define both her aesthetic vocabulary and her environmental message. In her own words, Wind once stated:
We live with man-made treasures which we cherish until they are ultimately discarded. I enter the picture at this point, and as an artist, I recycle the scrap, the junk and give it new meaning and life.... It’s my belief that our environment can be enhanced and saved from decay and destitution in part through the artist’s creativity to transform these discards into new, aesthetic forms.
About the Artist:
Originally from Israel, Dina Wind came to the United States in 1963. She earned her B.A. from the Hebrew University [Jerusalem, Israel], an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania [Philadelphia, PA], and a certificate from the Barnes Foundation, where her teacher was the late Violette de Mazia. She exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout her career, and was a longtime member of Nexus Gallery [Philadelphia, PA] and Veridian Gallery [New York, NY].
Her work is in permanent collections including Philadelphia Museum of Art [Philadelphia, PA], Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts [Philadelphia, PA], Woodmere Art Museum [Philadelphia, PA], West Collection [Oaks, PA], University of Pennsylvania [Philadelphia, PA], Penn Medicine [Philadelphia, PA], Berman Museum of Art [Collegeville, PA], Reading Museum [Reading, PA], The Bower: Native Garden and Sculpture Park [Sherman’s Dale, PA], Grounds for Sculpture [Hamilton, NJ], Tel Aviv Museum [Tel Aviv, Israel], and Reichman University [Herzlia, Israel], as well as many private and corporate collections.
Artistically descended from Abstract Expressionism, Wind began her art training in studio painting classes with Sam Feinstein, an artist/teacher who studied with Hans Hoffman. In 1978, she discovered welding and fell in love. She studied with sculptor Leon Sitarchik, supplemented with a course in industrial welding, and quickly developed her signature style. Working with cast-off materials such as abandoned car parts, industrial cut outs, and discarded tools, she created powerful assemblage sculptures with an environmental message. Instead of a brush and canvas, she transformed this detritus, the bane of urban landscapes, into lyrical compositions accented by deep glowing colors and linework which she described as “drawing in space.” As she got older she got bolder, pushing boundaries, creating room-sized installations and challenging the status quo. In 2014, after a four-year fight with ovarian cancer, Wind passed away at 76, leaving behind a lifetime of unique artwork and accomplishments.
About The Bower:
The Bower, where art and the natural world co-exist in harmony, sits on 36-acres in South Central Pennsylvania, 30 minutes west of Harrisburg. The Bower features large scale sculpture and land art carefully curated throughout the meadow, woodlands, raingarden pools, and naturalized landscaped garden areas, featuring over 200 species of native plants. The ten permanent sculptures in The Bower permanent collection, including Wind’s Homage to Smith, represent artists from Pennsylvania and throughout the US, as well as Hungary and Switzerland. The Bower is open for the season starting on May 4 by appointment only. Reservations may be made online at: https://thegardenbower.com/visit/.
Exhibition information: Dina Wind: Urban Garden will be on through the entire season at The Bower, from May 4 – October 15, 2022.