Tender Ground

January 17 - March 8, 2025

OPENING RECEPTION & DIALOGUE: Friday, January 17, 6:00 - 8:00 pm | Dialogue with the artist from 6:00 PM - 6:30 PM.

Pentimenti is proud to begin the new year with "Tender Ground", Anna Wehrwein’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

"Tender Ground" explores the profound connections between familiar individuals and human emotions, weaving together elements of art history, personal narratives, and abstraction. Inspired by the beauty in the banal, Anna’s work highlights moments of care and acts of tenderness. Ultimately, these gestures invite diverse interpretations, allowing each viewer to draw their own conclusions.

Anna Wehrwein gazes through leaves, doorways, and windows into gardens and landscapes that strike a balance between openness and enclosure. Her layered brushstrokes and scribbles create shifting boundaries, where figures blur, merge, or dissolve into the surrounding foliage. Within this environment, she subtly integrates her loved ones, those with whom she shares intimate moments, even though they are not always clearly defined.

The exhibition includes both paintings and works on paper. Anna’s paintings evolve in unexpected ways, beginning with dynamic color fields, followed by layers of imagery influenced by the vibrant and shifting foundation. Among her works on paper, Anna selected Color-Aid paper for three pieces, intentionally leaving parts of the surface exposed to emphasize her deliberate choices of paper colors, which remain visible beneath rich surfaces of charcoal or colored pencil.

Wehrwein invites us to step beyond ourselves, prompting reflection on our relationships with the people we know, the places we share, and the seemingly small yet essential connections that define us as human beings.

Anna Wehrwein (b. 1990) received her BS in Art and BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Tennessee. She has exhibited at Pentimenti, Philadelphia, PA; Thierry Goldberg (online), New York, NY; Troost Gardens, Kansas City, MO; Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, MO; Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; and was featured on Platform / David Zwirner. She has been a resident at Cloud House at Dreamsong Gallery, VCCA, Vermont Studio Center, Anderson Ranch Art Center, and MacDowell. She was awarded the Josephine Mercy Heathcote Fellowship at MacDowell in 2019.

For all inquiries, please contact us at mail@pentimenti.com or +1 215 625 9990.  The gallery is free and open to the public.