This Event has Passed
The Paul Dietrich Gallery at CambridgeSeven is pleased to announce an exhibition of works on paper by Lynne Kortenhaus. In partnership with Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown, where Kortenhaus regularly exhibits, the works on view span multiple years, from 2020-2025, and include large scale collages to monotypes and smaller “paintings” on paper.
The exhibition is on display from February 9 - May 1, 2026 from 9-5pm. A reception + Artist Talk will take place on February 12, 5:30-7:30 pm
Vestiges explores the liminal space between material presence and memory, where fragments of existence become tangible proof of what once was. Through an intimate dialogue with found materials—from mundane packing detritus to precious ephemera discovered within her grandparents' archives—Kortenhaus excavates layers of meaning that speak to our fundamental need to preserve, transform, and understand our place within the continuum of time.
As a printmaker at her core, Kortenhaus employs various techniques—monotype, etching, engraving, lithography—not as ends in themselves, but as instruments of transformation. Like a painter selecting brushes, she chooses processes that serve each work's conceptual needs, prioritizing the images that emerge from this alchemical conversion over pristine technical perfection.
The works in this exhibition reveal her love of working in series, where content unfolds through formal exploration. She seeks the connection between material object and meaning—not merely what something represents, but what it embodies through its physical presence and transformation. Historical elements become fragments of collective memory; blueprints transform into poetic abstractions; packing materials shift into carriers of new narratives.
Through collage and layered printmaking, Kortenhaus builds visual archaeology—each layer a stratum of time, each mark a testament to materials engaging with one another. The tactile nature of these processes mirrors the existential weight of the materials themselves: objects that once served specific purposes now find new meaning through artistic intervention, yielding to pressure, absorbing ink, and surrendering their original contexts to become something entirely different.
“These vestiges—remnants, traces, fragments—speak to the persistent human desire to leave marks and transform the ephemeral into something lasting,” states Kortenhaus. In working with materials that carry their own histories, she participates in an ongoing conversation about permanence and transience, about how meaning accumulates through time and touch, and how art becomes a vessel for preserving the very essence of what it means to encounter and be changed by the physical world.
