Madison Luetge
- Editor at Titan Contemporary Publishing
- Sep 24
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 27
Madison Luetge is an assemblage artist, sculptor, painter, and draftswoman who has exhibited in the United States, Italy, and South Korea. Notable exhibitions include multiple showings at Green Grain in Texas, Loosen Art in Rome, as well as inclusion at CICA Museum in Gimpo-si, South Korea, Blaffer Art Museum, Third Space Gallery, and San Jacinto Gallery at the University of Houston, and The Post Office Gallery at North Truro, Massachusetts. Madison has been published in periodicals such as The Birds We Piled Loosely, Loosen Art, Pandora's Box, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Voyage Dallas Interview, and Houston Voyage...
Working in several sets of series which entails I'll remember you this way, Objects, and We Were Never Strangers containing cropped facial features as well as creative writing in paint. I'll remember you this way contains assemblage of old photographs with figures carefully stenciled in with turquoise pigment. This luminous color against these aged vintage analogue photographs conveys a concept of fleeting moments and forgotten as well as discarded memories. Madison Luetge obtained these photographs from people selling them at yard sales and ebay, as a result, the blocked out figures without features represents the unwanted nature of these photographic memories by the people who were the original owners. The artist often wonders why someone would discard or sell such sacred memories.
Objects series contains small assemblage sculptures of ring boxes retrofitted with cigarette butts, false teeth, and other forms of conceptual integrations. These particular pieces are as absurd as they are disturbing, from containing small jewelry boxes stuffed with smelly cigarette butts to assembling ring boxes to be representations of open mouths or containing other configurations of body parts such as eyes. These Objects assemblage sculptures represent concepts of cherished memories and symbols, a theme similarly expressed in the I'll remember you this way series. Madison Luetge’s paintings usually entail detailed renderings of facial features and expressions which offer a confrontation, such as a woman’s mouth crunching down on a cigarette. Additionally, these paintings and drawings convey creative writing which seem to reflect close relationships which have been severed and lost.
Untitled (Please DON’T) (pictured above) depicts a mixed media assemblage containing acetate, polyacrylic, cotton candy, and ink with the words ‘Please DON’T’ stenciled across the surface. The luminosity in the materials as well as the stenciled text on an unwanted nature of an advance expresses an emphasis of conceptual expressions. The ‘bubblegum pop’ fun of the colors and textures of the work reveals careful smears of ink across the surface followed by a stretch of planes which quite literally resembles bubblegum.
Through a conceptual approach based on attachment, detachment, fleeting-forgotten as well as discarded memories, and poetic expressions in desires and yearnings, the artworks of Madison Luetge communicate a sense of visual bewilderment. The state of confusion and irony prevalent in her works are present through conceptual methods and applications rather than through literal depictions. With execution based on a variety of expressive methods and holding a value towards integrative methods, such as combinative assemblage or incorporating creative writing in her work, Madison Luetge uses well-rounded and explicit modes of expression to reveal the psychological and sociological states of communicative distance. These grand compositions reveal an inquisitive mind pulling back the curtain on the mysteries of interpretative notions of how personal relationships shape the human experience and psyche.
