MONIKA WULFERS

Eight Lines at a Time

November 9, 2024 - January 11, 2025
Opening reception November 9, 2024, 1 - 3 pm
Artist talk December 14, 2024, 2 pm

OS Projects presents Eight Lines at a Time, an exhibition of large-scale paintings, prints and drawings by Monika Wulfers. Opening November 9, 2024, the exhibit continues through January 11, 2025. The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Saturday, November 9 from 1 – 3 pm. Wulfers will also give an artist talk at the gallery on Saturday, December 14 at 2 pm.

Connectivity, chance, method, system, and the colors black and white, are the building blocks of Monika Wulfers’ artwork. The artist defines three-dimensional space using the simplest units—points, lines and their numerical analogues—all of which serve as organizing elements of reality. Her investigations into the relationships among these units function as a premise for visual knowing.

Wulfers’ fascination with space as both concept and experience comes from observing natural phenomena. While learning to fly, the artist noticed an airplane does not fly in a straight line but can angulate almost sideways toward its destination as it compensates for wind speed. Her experiences on and near water made her think about the curvature of the earth, particularly when sailing past islands that appeared from her vantage point to rotate around her boat. Riding a train, she became aware of the relationship between spatial proximity and motion, as objects nearby appeared to move fast while objects in the distance moved more slowly.

Wulfers’ artwork is a distillation of her keen observations of how our position in, and movement through, three-dimensional space influences our perceptions. While the grid and perspective are implied in the works, the perception of shape, volume and scale changes depending on the viewpoint, inviting further contemplation and reflection. As one writer has noted, “(Wulfers) depicts reality not by showing the object itself in her (artwork) but by showing its interior dimension.”

About the Artist

Born in Berlin, Germany, Monika Wulfers lives and works in Racine, Wisconsin. She received a BA in Philosophy from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois and an MFA with a concentration in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied film under Stan Brakhage and painting under Ray Yoshida and Ted Halkin. Her oeuvre includes painting, neon installations, digital prints, video, and photography. 

One of the Founding Members of Artists Residents of Chicago (ARC), Wulfers has served as Director of its Educational Foundation. In 1975, she joined Argonne National Laboratory as a resident artist. She was also on the faculty at Barat College (Lake Forest, IL) and College of Lake County, (Grayslake, IL.) Over the past five decades, Wulfers has made significant contributions in art and technology and advanced the use of the computer as an artistic medium. Her work has been shown in museums in the U.S. and internationally and is included in the permanent collections of the Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL), DePaul University (Chicago, IL), Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (Ludwigshafen, Germany) and Argonne National Laboratory in addition to numerous private collections.