Birch Bark

Purdue Galleries, permanent collection, Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Birch Bark, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

2023

Orange Sunflower

Boca Raton Museum of Art, permanent collection, Boca Raton FL

Orange Sunflower, 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

2022

Mayday

University Museums, permanent collection, University of Delaware, Newark DE

Mayday, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

2022

Ring

University Museums, permanent collection, University of Delaware, Newark DE

Ring, 2021, oil, fluorescent paint on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

2022

Flurries

UB Art Galleries, permanent collection, University of Buffalo, Buffalo NY

Flurries, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

2022

Duet

UB Art Galleries, permanent collection, University of Buffalo, Buffalo NY

Duet, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

2022

Red-Gold

UB Art Galleries, permanent collection, University of Buffalo, Buffalo NY

Red-Gold, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

2022

Sunflower

Eskanazi Museum of Art, permanent collection, Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Sunflower, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

June 2022

Everyone Is Different

"ONE NATION With Liberty and Justice for All," Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion, New York NY

Everyone is Different, Everyone is the Same, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches, catalogue

January 2023 — December 2023

Evil Eyes

"MAGICAL THINKING, Superstitions and Other Tenacious Notions," Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion, New York NY

Evil Eyes, 2019, oil on canvas, 22 x 22 inches, catalogue

May — December 2022

londonPlaneTree5

Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, Boston MA

One of two works on paper acquired for the collection.


London Plane Tree #5, 2011, oil on Stonehenge paper, 17 x 15 inches

June 2020

enlargedFingerprint

"Open Storage:" RAM Showcases Ceramics, Fiber & Regional Archives, Racine Art Museum (RAM), Racine WI

The RAM owns 35 of my early works on paper. All these works will be exhibited in Open Storage.


The exhibition is arranged as solo shows.


Fingerprint, 2005, acrylic on cut paper

January 26 — August 30, 2020

DavidsTree

"Art@50Plus," Islip Art Museum, East Islip NY

Exhibition curated by Holly Gordon.


David's Tree, 2019, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches.

December 6 — January 16, 2020

palm

"ECHOES: From There to Here," Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco CA

Palm, 2017, oil on canvas, 15 x 18 inches.

Catalogue

November 14 — November 30, 2019

primeTimeAnnouncement

"Prime Time," Islip Art Museum, East Islip NY

Six of my paintings in "Prime Time." Exhibition curated by Christine O'Malley.


April 23 — June 23, 2019

pow

"Pow," DePaul Art Museum, Chicago IL

Acquisition: collage work on paper, 2007.


February 2019

whatIsAWoman_She

"What is a Woman?" Book

"She" featured in book, published by Together to Empower, Goleta CA.

June 2018

litchfieldMagazine2018

"The Art of It, All Things Are Natural," Litchfield Magazine

"Aleph" featured in the magazine.

July — August 2018

alephAnnouncement

"All Things Natural," Five Points Gallery, Torrington CT

Announcement card featuring "Aleph," one of my four paintings in the exhibition.

July 12 — August 18, 2018

wishingTree

International Independent Art Fair (IIAFNYC), New York NY

St. Martin's Episcopal Church

May 1 — May 16, 2018

londonPlaneTreeManual

Manual: Polychrome, Issue 10, a biannual journal about art and its making

Published by RISD Museum, Providence RI

April 2018

twoCoatsOfPaint

"Two Coats of Paint"

Art newsletter

June — July 2017

davidOwsleyAcquisitions

"NEW ACQUISITIONS 2016," David Owsley Museum of Art, Muncie IN

Installation of "My Left Index Finger" with ancient Buddhas.

May 21 — September 4, 2016

myLeftIndexFinger

"My Left Index Finger," David Owsley Museum of Art, Muncie IN

The David Owsley Museum of Art, Muncie IN, acquired an 11-piece oil on paper installation of mine, "My Left Index Finger," 2008, for the permanent collection.

October 2015

gloves

"Cut, Fold and Form," Racine Art Museum, Racine WI

The Racine Art Museum, Racine WI, acquired 32 of my works on paper from 5 series for their permanent collection. The series trace the development of my body of work from 1995 to 2008. One series is included in "Cut, Fold and Form, " at the museum from January 24 to May 1, 2016.

October 2015

naturalAllusions

"Natural Allusions," Addison/Ripley Fine Art, Washington DC

My painting is featured in the gallery window - one of the "Three Sisters" triptych, the other two paintings are visible on the wall to the right.

January 31 — March 14, 2015

lincolnCenterExhibition

"Trees," Lincoln Center, New York NY

Permanent installation of three paintings, "Trees," Lincoln Center Kitchen, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, New York NY.

September 2014

purpletree

"Artist Profile: Merle Temkin," Art in Brooklyn / Art in New York City

Michael Sorgatz selected my three painting to be featured on Art in Brooklyn / Art in New York City

Tulip Tree, 2014, oil on canvas. 36 x 38 inches,

Autumn Tree, 2014, oil on linen, 36 x 38 inches,

Copper Beech Tree, 2013, oil on linen, 28 x 27 inches.

June 2014

merlein-international-plain-notebook-project
assets/images/news/merle-temkin-international-plain-notebook-project.jpg

International Plain Notebook Project, Tel Aviv, Israel

Beit Ha'ir Urban Culture Museum Tel Aviv, Israel

A plain notebook was sent to participating international artists who were asked to create a work of art using it. In my notebook I continued to explore a long-running theme of chain-link fencing through collage and paint.

July — November 2013

londonPlaneTrees

"London Plane Tree," Providence RI

The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, acquired my work on paper," London Plane Tree," 2011, for the permanent collection.

July 2013

heartsAndFlowers

"Hearts and Flowers," Muncie IN

The David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, acquired "Hearts and Flowers," 1995, a work on paper with thread and paint, for its permanent collection.

February 2012

onlyMe

"Only Me," Racine Art Museum, Racine WI

The Racine Art Museum, Racine WI acquired a 24-piece installation, "Only Me," 2002–2009, embroidery, paint on paper.

January 2012

londonPlaneTreePollack

Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award

Tree paintings

March 2010

she

"She," Park Hagalil, Karmiel, Israel

Permanent sculpture: 9 x 3 feet, galvanized iron and stainless steel mirrors, commissioned by Municipality of Karmiel

(See video of the installation below)

April 2009

fingerprintsChicago

"Merle Temkin: Fingerprints," solo exhibition at Chicago Cultural Center

BY KEVIN NANCE Art Critic, Chicago Sun Times, Jan. 17, 2007

For years now it's been fashionable, and increasingly a cliche, for critics to speak of artists as "making marks"—a fancy and ideologically fraught way of describing the gesture of applying pigment to canvas. In her intriguing new show at the Chicago Cultural Center, painter Merle Temkin adds an extra layer (or two or three) of metaphoric meaning to the idea of markmaking in a series of largely abstract images incorporating her own fingerprints and footprints.

Combining works in acrylic paint, dye and thread on cloth with others on cut paper, "Fingerprints" both objectifies that most personal of marks—the pattern of whorls and sickle-shaped lines that distinguish every person from any other—and turns it into a surprisingly universal aesthetic statement about the simultaneous uniqueness and anonymity of human identity. The conundrum of a fingerprint as the ultimate signature is that one looks at first glance much like any other; only by examining it in microscopic detail, as the artist has done here, can we associate it with an individual.

Most effective and haunting are the works on paper, whose sliced-and-reconfigured quality suggests a fracturing and reassembling of identity with implications that are both psychological and—especially in this era of increasing surveillance—political.

Temkin, born and educated in Chicago and based in New York, also draws our attention to the sheer formal beauty of the fingerprint, which, in these heavily ridged pieces built up with thick impasto strokes and dangling threads suggestive of embroidery or quiltmaking, may remind viewers of mazes, exotic animal hides or the strata of an archeological dig. The artist's technique is the opposite of slick; if there's a single word to describe Temkin's work, it's "handmade."

January 2007*