On Gallery Night MKE (Friday, July 18th from 5-9pm and July 19th from 12-5pm), Grove Gallery will present “You are Welcome!” an autobiographical exhibition of prints and drawings by Teddy Dean Lepley III. Through figurative drawings, caricature-esque etchings and expressive woodcuts, Lepley shares a life shaped by queer shame, love, loss, and irony. This work represents a decade of their life and embraces contradiction and familial complexity, reflecting both personal vulnerability and the emotional weight of our current political climate. Lepley charts relationships, memories, and evolving identity as drawings from life and reimagined memories. This work doesn’t try to hide a deeper meaning, so enjoy the visual variety and forthright message.
Translating a drawing into a print becomes an editing process for Lepley. Even the mirrored image of a block or plate challenges them to think differently, opening up the work to fantastic surprises. Their etchings use overbitten metals that swell and enhance embellishments of soft-ground lifts of fabric textures and slurries of salt and hard ground. Plates are scraped and burnished until they find balance. Woodcuts are drawn directly with gouges, forming light and texture through an improvised process.
Each image holds a moment: a feeling, a person, or a place. Life is shaped by the spaces and people we spend time with, from conservative family members to liberal friends, childhood homes to gay bars. Places can either encourage us to move freely or tighten up with constrictions. Love can also be both freeing and limiting. This exhibition speaks to the complexity of human experience by sharing a life that is not simple, but honest.
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