Kristin Thielking

Words and Pencils Escape Together

February - June 2026

Words and Pencils Escape Together is a new installation by artist Kristin Thielking.

The exhibition consists of text, hand-written by the artist directly across the walls, floors and ceiling of Gallery Closed.

The text reflects the artists experience of allowing a long held back compulsion to cover any white space in writing.

Thielking has a special interest in working with language as a material. “I have always felt a secret pull to write on objects that are not meant to be written on such as: walls in a house, a toilet, the hull of a sailboat, inside the cracks of a fallen tree, the underside of an aspen leaf, or on rocks by a river. The act of writing by hand on these objects feels like an exhale. Writing the words down, not on paper, but on solid things gives the tangled flow of words in my head an order, a quieting of the noise. This pull has led to works that explore language as a physical material which occupies a space, and through their form acquires physical weight and associations subject to gravity.”

Artist Website

bio

Kristin Thielking is from Long Island, NY and received a BA in Fine Art and Comparative Literature from Brown University, RI and an MFA in Sculpture from University of Wisconsin, Madison.

She has exhibited and presented on her work widely. She also maintains a deep interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and is currently a co-founder of the artist collective: Ladyfoot with artists: Bridget Carpenter, LA and Michelle Swinehart, WA. She is a member of CatchingAWave.org, a group of transdisciplinary researchers from universities based in the USA, UK and Ireland. The group creates work and publications that promotes positive environmental change and education through art and science collaboration.

She also works with partner Keven Brunett on large-scale public art projects including Wisconsin Percent for Arts commission for the Waukesha State Office Building, Medical College of Wisconsin, Wausau Campus, WI, Marshfield Clinic, Marshfield, WI, Milwaukee’s Third Ward Arts Walk, Dubuque River Walk, Iowa, Bank of Wausau, WI, University of Indianapolis, IA, Magee-Gerrer Museum of Art in OK, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, WI.

She has participated in artist-in-residence programs including the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry program, WI, Edenfred, WI and the Vermont Studio Center.