Birch Bark, permanent installation, lobby, Yue-Kong Pao Hall of Visual and Performing Arts, Purdue University, West Lafayette IN
Birch Bark, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2024
Purdue Galleries, permanent collection, Purdue University, West Lafayette IN
Birch Bark, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2023
Boca Raton Museum of Art, permanent collection, Boca Raton FL
Orange Sunflower, 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2022
University Museums, permanent collection, University of Delaware, Newark DE
Mayday, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2022
University Museums, permanent collection, University of Delaware, Newark DE
Ring, 2021, oil, fluorescent paint on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2022
UB Art Galleries, permanent collection, University of Buffalo, Buffalo NY
Flurries, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2022
UB Art Galleries, permanent collection, University of Buffalo, Buffalo NY
Duet, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2022
UB Art Galleries, permanent collection, University of Buffalo, Buffalo NY
Red-Gold, 2020, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
2022
Eskanazi Museum of Art, permanent collection, Indiana University, Bloomington IN
Sunflower, 2021, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
June 2022
"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
"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
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
"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
"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
"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
"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," DePaul Art Museum, Chicago IL
Acquisition: collage work on paper, 2007.
February 2019
"What is a Woman?" Book
"She" featured in book, published by Together to Empower, Goleta CA.
June 2018
"The Art of It, All Things Are Natural," Litchfield Magazine
"Aleph" featured in the magazine.
July — August 2018
"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
International Independent Art Fair (IIAFNYC), New York NY
St. Martin's Episcopal Church
May 1 — May 16, 2018
Manual: Polychrome, Issue 10, a biannual journal about art and its making
Published by RISD Museum, Providence RI
April 2018
"Two Coats of Paint"
Art newsletter
June — July 2017
"NEW ACQUISITIONS 2016," David Owsley Museum of Art, Muncie IN
Installation of "My Left Index Finger" with ancient Buddhas.
May 21 — September 4, 2016
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
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
"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
"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
"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
Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award
Tree paintings
March 2010
"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
"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*