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"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

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