Wells Chandler

Wells Chandler (he/him) is a Bronx-based artist who explores ecology, community, gender, and queer iconography through the mediums of crochet, embroidery, drawing, and cake.  Informed by queer and feminist craft histories, folk art, and psychedelic thinkers from the 1970s, Chandler pares back and distills form until it functions iconographically. Installed as a whole, his crocheted environments are evocative of cave paintings, Egyptian tombs, Buddhist shrines, and, more recently, the natural world. He received his M.F.A. from Yale University where he was awarded the Ralph Mayer Prize for proficiency in materials and techniques.  From 2016–17 he was a recipient of the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program. Recent solo exhibitions include  Soloway (Brooklyn, New York), Andrew Rafacz (Chicago, Illinois), Diablo Rosso (Panama City, Panama), and Galerie Eric Mouchet (Paris, France).

His work has been reviewed by Roxane Gay, Art Forum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Hyperallergic, The Huffington Post, TimeOut, Modern Painters, Maake Magazine, Two Coats of Paint, and AEQAI. Chandler is a Visiting Assistant Professor at SUNY Purchase and a Soloway gallery member. 

Wells Chandler was the Spring 2023 Teiger Mentor in the Arts and delivered an artist talk on March 23, at 5:15 p.m. in the Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium.

Academic Research/Specialty Areas

  • Collaborative practice
  • Drawing
  • Installation art
  • Interdisciplinary art
  • Painting
  • Visual representation

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Classes (Selected)

  • ART 6000 Radicalizing CareSeminar exploring selected writings on current issues in the visual arts. Designed to introduce graduate students to several approaches to critical inquiry and analysis of contemporary artistic practice. Topics vary but may include related issues in areas such as critical theory, identity politics, institutional frames, sustainability, urbanization, and globalization.
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