LEAH POLLER > BIO LEAH POLLER was born in Pennsylvania. She received classical training in sculpture at the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieure de Beaux Arts, in Paris, France. Partaking of a rich, multi-cultural environment, Poller interacted with foremost members of the international arts communities of France, Spain, Italy and Latin America. Returning to the United States in 1992, she established her studio in Soho and began the series of "101 Beds" which has been exhibited in galleries and institutions in Europe, Mexico, and throughout the United States. In 2010 she began "The Unmade Bed Project", a collection of images of people's unmade beds (www.unmadebedproject.com) which will be the basis for the book "UNMADE BED PROJECT A Tale Between Two Sheets". She has been featured on CNN, Fox Television and in numerous art publications. She has lectured extensively and held workshops on creativity. In 2003 she was named Director of "Intercambios de Arte y Cultural Internacionale", a not-for profit furthering cultural exchanges between the Americas and spearheading the restoration of a major twentieth century mural, recently discovered to be the work of Philip Guston. Leah Poller has exhibited her work worldwide in galleries, museums, institutions, and public spaces since 1998. She has won many distinguished awards and her work is in major international collections. She has lectured extensively on curating, collecting, and motivational/behavioral studies related to the creative life. > ARTIST STATEMENT Following an accident in my studio, I was relegated to bed and thus began an incredible study of our relationship with the bed in all its visual, literary and narrative forms. More than a third of our life is spent in bed, yet rarely has it been examined through a work of art. Exploring this in 3 dimensions has given full scope to my sense of humor, pathos, whimsy, sarcasm, tragedy and passion. It has been an ambitious undertaking to create 101 sculptures all inter-related meeting the challenge has been mind expanding and multi-sensorial in every sense. I invite my audience into a very special theater of personal experience. SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2013 #BED - Yellow Peril Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island 2012 In & Out of Bed - Galeria Lelia Mordoch, Miami, Florida Beds, Money and Mattresses - Capital One Bank, Tribeca, NY 2011 Harlem Bedtime - Strivers Art Circuit, New York, NY Leah Poller Bedtime Stories - Contemporary Art Fair, New York, NY 2010 Bank on Beds, Part IV - Capital One Bank, One Penn Plaza, New York,NY 2009 Under The Mattress - in collaboration with Milan Luxury Linens, New York, NY Under The Mattress - in collaboration with Bellino Fine Linens, New York, NY
2008 Bank on Beds, Part III - Capital One Bank, One Penn Plaza, NY 2007 101 Beds... A Dream in Bronze - Galeria Vertice, Guadalajara, Mexico Suenos y Poesia - Centro Cultural San Angel, Mexico City Museo Casa Diego Rivera, Guanajuato, Mexico - Centro Comunidad Sefaradi, Mexico City, Mexico 2005 Camas y Suenos - Museo Regional de Michoacan, Morelia, Mexico 2004 Camas y mas camas - Galeria del Anticuariato, Morelia, Mexico Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (CONACULTAH-INAH), Morelia, Mexico Soaring Beds - sponsored by Soaringwords.org, New York, NY From Head to Bed - YIN YANG Multi Sensorial Social Laboratory, New York, NY 2003 Bank on Beds - Part II - Fleet Bank, Empire State Building, Sponsored by Soaringwords.org, New York, NY Realities VII - Arnot Museum, Elmira, NY Ciento - y - una camas - National Museum of Morelia, Mexico Dream Awake - The Association for Spirituality and Psychotherapy, Fordham University, New York, NY Bed and Beyond - Kismet Gallery, New York, NY Manhattan to Mexico...and Back - The Mexican Cultural Institute, New York, NY 2002 101 Beds - Galleria Dante, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 2001 Leah Poller - 101 Beds - Edward Dean Museum, Palm Springs, California 2000 Leah Poller - 101 Beds - Mercedes Benz Manhattan, NY Sculpture Showcase - Naples, Florida 101 Lits - Galerie Treger, Paris, France 101 Beds - Fleet Bank, Empire State Building, New York, NY 1999 101 Bed Collection - Park Avenue Atrium, New York, NY Leah Poller s Beds - Portals Gallery, Chicago, and SOFA, Chicago, Ilinois Leah Poller et 101 Lits - Ofivalmo, Paris, France1998 101 Bed Collection - Washington Square Windows, New York, NY 1997 The first 50/101 Bed Collection - Freites Revilla Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida Leah Poller - Bedtime - Marathon Gallery, Tucson, Arizona Leah Poller, Portals Gallery, Chicago, Illinois Leah Poller Dorog Gallery, Los Angeles, California TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2012 Bedtime Confessions, Leah Poller and Carlos DeMedeiros Art influx, Harlem, NY 2010 Leah Poller and Bobbi Van - Governor s Island Art Fair, New York, NYY 1999 The One Hundred and One Beds - Sculptor s Showcase, New Hope, PA 1995 Joy of Color and Palette of Beds - Leah Poller and Sara Bachrodt - Joel Kessler Fine Art, Miami Beach, Florida
GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 101 Beds... A Dream in Bronze ( A Selection) - Galeria Vertice, Guadalajara, Mexico 2011 The Great Nude Invitational Javitz Center, New York, NY Tossed and Found - Stanford Connecticut Business District 14th Annual Sculpture Walk 101 Beds... A Dream in Bronze ( A Selection) - Galeria Vertice, Guadalajara, Mexico 2010 The Great Nude Invitational - Roger Smith Hotel, New York, NY 101 Beds... A Dream in Bronze ( A Selection) - Galeria Vertice, Guadalajara, Mexico 2009 On Aggression - Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination, New York, NY 2008 Senderos Mexicanos, Part VI - Museo Regional de Michoacan, Morelia, México and Centro Cultural, San Angel, Mexico City 2007 Senderos Mexicanos, Part V - Museo Regional de Michoacan, Morelia Centro Cultural San Angel, Mexico City Reminisence - Grounds for Sculpture, The Johnson and Johnson Foundation, Harrison, NJ 2006 Annual Conference - Association for Spirituality and Psychotherapy, Fordham University, New York, NY Senderos Mexicanos,Part IV - Museo Regional de Michoacan, Morelia 2005 Senderos Mexicanos y Vuelta - Museo Regionale de Michoacan, Mexico 2004 Art Miami - Artempresa, Cordova, Argentina Rhumbos de Nueva York - Regional Museum, Conaculta, Morelia, Mexico SOFA - ArtEmpresa, New York, NY 2003 Realities VII - Arnot Museum, Elmira, NY 2001 Earthline/Landscape - Gallery of South Orange, NJ Poller - Duveen Fine Arts, Naples, Florida 1997 Tools as Art II: Exploring Metaphor - National Building Museum, Hechinger Collection, Washington, D.C. Tools as Art III: All Saws, National Building Museum, Washington, DC Poller on Art - Raleigh Reisen Fine Art, Boca Raton, Florida Tools as Art Part I - Hechinger Collection, Washington, D.C. SOFA (Sculpture, Objects and Fine Art), Miami, Florida1996 The Bed Collection - Marathon Gallery, Tucson, Arizona The Portals Gallery/Miami International Art Fair, Miami, Florida Realities II - Art Alliance, New York, NY 1995 The Portals Gallery/Art Miami International Art Fair, Miami, Florida The Portals Gallery/SOFA, Chicago, Illinois Raleigh Reisen Fine Art, Boca Raton, Florida The Portals Gallery/SOFA, Chicago, Illinois Raleigh Reisen Fine Art, Boca Raton, Florida
AWARDS Soho International 92, Montserrat Gallery, Soho New York, Certificate of Excellence C. Lorrilard Wolfe Art Club 96th Annual Competition, New York Washington Sculpture Group at Washington Square, juried by Jeremy Strick, Curator, National Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Beyond the Boundaries National Annual Exhibition, W.C.A, Seattle, Washington Pen and Brush 45th National Competition, New York, New York Open Studio - Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC Annual Juried Fine Arts Exhibition, Greater Reston Arts Center, Reston, Virginia Pen and Brush, 45th National Competition, New York, New York Honorable Mention for the sculpture No - The Gas Mask Foothills Gallery North American Competition Foothills, Colorado Silver Medallion for On Her Mind (12/40/2000) Montserrat Gallery, Certificate of Excellence (3 works) South Bend Indiana Art Museum, South Bend, Indiana, Honorable Mention for In a Leap from her Bed PRIZES 46th Annual Sculpture Exhibition - Pen and Brush, New York, NY Arts Alive - National Artists Equity, Bethesda, Maryland The Open Show - Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC Her Art Works - juried by Linda Bengalis, South Bend, Indiana, Art Museum (40/2000 entries) AFFILIATIONS Bedtime Network Artists Round Table Association for International Artists National Artists Equity Women s Caucus for the Arts Washington Sculpture Guild Association des Sculpteurs (France) Friends of the Museum of the Americas Pen and Brush (New York) Who s Who of American Women PRESS The Art of Sleeping by Bedtime Network, 2012 Water and Art: The Work of Leah Poller by Eryn-Ashlei Bailey, WaterWideWeb, 2010 Appreciation of Leah Poller and her Beds, by Cliff Johns, The Potomac, 2003 La Provincia, Mexico, 2003 Acento, La Voz de Michoacan, Morelia, Mexico, 2003 Semana de la Cultura, La Voz, Michoacan, Mexico, 2003 Leah s Beds, by Cate Mclare, Boca Sentinal, 1998 Global Frontrunners Profile Magazine, 1997 Casting Your Bed in Bronze, The Artist s Magazine, April 1997 Exhibit celebrates surrealists fascination with Bedfellows, Spotlight Chicago, 1995 Bed Puns, by Fred Camper, Chicago Reader, 1995 Leah Poller, by Maurice Calka, Prix de Rome A Question of Culture, Eyewash, Washington DC, 1990 The Symbolic Bed, by Mitchell Snow, Washington DC, 1990 Kudos, Off the Record, Chicago Sentinel, 1995 Leah Poller, Who s Who of American Women, 1997-1999
#BED > PRICE LIST Flagrant de Lit 8 x 5.5 x 14 $10000 Day Bed Dol 13 x 3.5 x 8.5 2.5 x 4 x 2 $9000 Death Bed Homage to Frida Kahlo 10.5 x 7.5 x 15.5 $14000 Doll Bed Homage to Belmer 8 x 14 x 9 $12500 Bedtime Story 13 x 9 x 10.5 $12000 Softbed cotton, wood, thread, fabric, paint 16 x 12 x 18 $2400 Four Poster Bed Homage to Ai Wei Wei 6.5 x 10 x 9 $8000 Lit de Glace glass, wood 6.5 x 10 x 9 $2500 Bedtime3 Homage to Dali 10 x 10 x 10.5 $8500 Secret Bed wood, mixed media 10 x 6.5 x 7 $4000 Corncrib 12 x 8 x 11.5 $12000 Murphy Bed Homage to Dan Quayle 8.5 x 9 x 13 $12000 Lei in Bed 9 x 12 x 9 $12000 Canape Lit 10 x 7.5 x 9.5 $9000 Bed Pillow mixed media 7 x 6 x 5.5 $7500 Ribbed 12 x 7.5 x 6 $2400
Mini Alpha Bed 3 x 4 x 4 $975 #Bed neon sign 13 x 36 x 2 $750 Yellow Peril Gallery will provide collectors with a Certificate Of Authenticity for each original work of art sold and signed by the Artist. A CD-ROM with relevant exhibition documents is also available upon request. All artwork sold at Yellow Peril Gallery is tax-free. Prices do not include Shipping and Handling costs, which vary by location. To purchase or enquire further, please contact Vanphouthon Souvannasane, Director, Yellow Peril Gallery, via phone at +1 401 861 1535 or e-mail at van@yellowperilgallery.com. Mentoring USA's mission is to create positive and supportive mentor relationships for youth ages 7-21, through a structured site-based model. Mentoring USA believes that the presence of a caring adult in a young person's life increases self-esteem, strengthens relationships with peers and adults, improves academic performance and attendance, and helps combat school drop-out. Research increasingly indicates that children who succeed, despite often enormous personal, economic or social obstacles, do so because of caring, competent adults who believe in them. Mentoring outcomes are reciprocal: mentors attest to enhanced self image and self esteem, fulfilling expression of personal values and accrue cultural capital and a diverse perspective. Mentoring USA is a structured, site-based, mentoring organization that began as the first statesponsored, school-based, one-on-one mentoring program in the country in 1987. The program founded by former First Lady of the State of New York, Matilda Raffa Cuomo, became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 1995, and has provided mentors for more than 5,000 children since its inception and serves youth nationally and internationally. For more information about Mentoring USA, visit: http://www.mentoringusa.org»
P R E S S R E L E A S E FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > August 1, 2013 Yellow Peril Gallery 60 Valley Street #5 Providence, RI 02909 Media Contact: V Souvannasane Tel: +1 917 655 1497 E/M: van@yellowperilgallery.com Leah Poller #BED LEAH POLLER, Death Bed: Homage to Frida Kahlo (2012),, 10.5 x 7.5 x 15.5 September 19 October 13, 2013 Curated by Robert P. Stack Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 5PM 9PM Gallery Night Providence Salon at Yellow Peril: Friday, September 20, 5PM 7PM Hosted by The Providence Athenaeum Gallery Hours:
Thu + Fri, 3PM 8PM / Sat + Sun, 12PM 5PM / Other days by appointment Yellow Peril Gallery is pleased to present #BED, a solo exhibition which titillates new understandings of our relationship with the bed via small scale mixed media sculptures and site-specific interactive installations by New York sculptor Leah Poller, opening Thursday, September 19, 2013, during Gallery Night Providence. Bedridden from an accident caused while moving a large sculpture in her Soho studio, Leah Poller spent many hours pondering the nature of the bed, in life, in language and in art. Her 101 Bed Collection became a detailed examination of the history, meaning and symbolic nature of that unique place where one-third of life is lived, and where the most significant of life s activities are enacted. The bed is the most intimate stage on which our true selves appear in birth, death, sex, loving and dreaming, Poller shares. Our language is rich in words that contain bed, which inspired me to transform these common words into visual images. Using found objects and visual metaphors, Poller has taken one of life s most significant icons The Bed and converted it into a three-dimensional, visual language of love, pathos, humor, society, aesthetics and culture, conjugated in several languages and crossing mental and emotional borders. The iconography of the bed is part of a shared consciousness, an intrinsic experience that is simultaneously universal and secretive, personal and for many, unmentionable, notes Curator Robert P. Stack, who selected over a dozen small scale sculptures for #BED at Yellow Peril Gallery. Poller focuses on the object or place, masterfully executed in a playful array of rich materials, textures and colors. But what brings them alive is what s absent but implied: people, actions, feelings, sickness, lust, rest, intimacy all the human forces of emotion that fuel meaning in life. In 2010, convinced that the importance of our beds had gone unexplored, Poller began The Unmade Bed Project, inviting people from around the world to post an image of their unmade bed on a dedicated site (http://www.unmadebedproject.com). At Yellow Peril, visitors will have an opportunity to participate in The Unmade Bed Project using #BED to share their photos and experiences in real-time via social networks. As a prequel to an upcoming Athenaeum Salon Series on the history of salon culture, and in homage to the original salonnières of 17 th century France, whose practice of cultivating conversation among their invited guests from the intimacy of their beds created an atmosphere where ideas of public and private came to define one another in a new way, the Providence Athenaeum will host a unique Salon discussion with Poller from a bed installed at Yellow Peril about the concept behind #BED and where the project has taken flight since its launch in 2012. The opening reception for #BED is Thursday, September 19, from 5PM 9PM during Gallery Night Providence. The exhibition will be on display until Sunday, October 13, 2013. Poller s work has been exhibited in galleries, museums and institutions in Mexico City, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, and, most recently, Hong Kong and Shanghai. This is her first solo exhibition in Providence at Yellow Peril Gallery. About Leah Poller LEAH POLLER was born in Pennsylvania. She received classical training in sculpture at the prestigious École Nationale Superieure de Beaux Arts, in Paris, France. Partaking of a rich, multi-cultural
environment, Poller interacted with foremost members of the international arts communities of France, Spain, Italy and Latin America. Returning to the United States in 1992, she established her studio in Soho and began the series of 101 Beds which has been exhibited in galleries and institutions in Europe, Mexico, and throughout the United States. In 2009 Poller moved to Sugar Hill, Harlem. She has recently concluded a 12-year project - The 101 Bed Collection and is working on several portrait commissions. She has been featured on CNN, Fox Television and in numerous art publications. She has lectured extensively and held workshops on creativity. She was named Director of Intercambios de Arte y Cultural Internacionale, a not-for profit furthering cultural exchanges between the Americas and spearheading the restoration of a major twentieth century mural, recently discovered to be the work of Philip Guston. For more info about Leah Poller, visit www.leahpoller.com. About The Providence Atheneum THE PROVIDENCE ATHENAEUM, founded as "The Athenaeum" in 1836, is an independent, membersupported library open to the public. As a unique independent, member-supported library and cultural center, The Athenaeum welcomes and enriches the educational and cultural pursuits of its members and the community and encourages a diverse public to engage in spirited conversation. It offers a wide range of experiences by providing and conserving extraordinary collections, offering innovative and compelling programs, promoting and collaborating with the community's vibrant cultural sector, and highlighting and preserving its historic building. For more info about The Providence Athenaeum, visit providenceathenaeum.org. About Yellow Peril Gallery YELLOW PERIL GALLERY is a contemporary art gallery located at The Plant, a historic mill complex in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. The Gallery strives to foster modern art critiques on popular culture and society from emerging, mid-career and established artists in the United States and abroad. We aspire to exhibit provocative and visually arresting artwork created specifically to ignite conversations long after viewers have left the building. Artists that we represent share our commitment to social responsibility, and a percentage from the sale of all artwork is donated to a charitable organization of the Artists choice. For more info about future exhibitions, visit www.yellowperilgallery.com. * * * * * If you d like more information about this press release, or to schedule an interview with LEAH POLLER, please contact Vanphouthon Souvannasane at +1 917 655 1497 or via e-mail at van@yellowperilgallery.com.