Wendy White, a painter and sculptor who highlights topics of masculinity while producing metaphors that address the current social and political moment, has been named the Teiger Mentor in the Arts for the fall 2019 semester by the Department of Art.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Wendy White to the community at Cornell, to hear her speak about her work and to witness her committed engagement with the [master of fine arts] cohort,” said Carl Ostendarp, associate professor of art and director of graduate studies.

As the Teiger mentor, White will visit campus multiple times during the fall semester, meeting and working with graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Art. She will deliver a public talk, “Pedal to the Metal,” Sept. 30 at 5:15 p.m. in the Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium, Milstein Hall.

Based in New York City, White employs language and aesthetics often related to male-dominated areas, from professional sports and muscle car culture to abstract expressionism. The artist uses iconic branding, gestural mark-making and materials such as denim in her work.

“What first struck me, when I became aware of Wendy’s work, was the sheer constancy of invention involved,” Ostendarp said. “From one body of work to the next, a diverse and heterogeneous array of methodologies, iconographies, formats and media are engaged which expand the means and definition of painting.”

White’s recent group exhibitions include “Loves,” at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta; “American Idyll,” at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia; and “The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art,” at the Perez Art Museum in Miami.

White received a New York Foundation for the Arts painting fellowship in 2012 and a George Segal painting grant in 2008. She is scheduled to have a solo exhibition at Museum Goch, Germany, in April 2020.

White received her MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

The Teiger Mentor in the Arts Program was created in 2013 with a gift from David Teiger ’51, a graduate of the School of Hotel Administration. Teiger, who died in December 2014, was a contemporary art collector and patron of curatorial projects and exhibitions throughout the U.S. and Europe.

White is the 13th Teiger mentor to date.

Edith Fikes is a communications assistant at the College of Architecture, Art and Planning.