Nick Lenker
PARALLEL PROJECTION
MAY 1 – JUNE 20, 2026
Parallel Projection
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
In the front gallery, Philadelphia-based artist Nick Lenker returns to Candela with new works from his ongoing series, IRL Objects. While combining photography, sculpture, and iconography, Lenker transfers found imagery onto hand-built geometric ceramic forms that feel at once ancient, digital, and oddly familiar. Drawing from folklore, pop culture, memes, and everyday visual symbols, the works playfully examine how identity and meaning are constructed in an increasingly mediated world.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Nick Lenker holds an MFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and a BFA from the University of the Arts, with a focus in ceramics.
In 2021, he completed a residency at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. In 2019, Lenker completed the courtyard commission for Project HOME, the Gloria Casarez Residence (an LGBT-focused homelessness-prevention project). In 2020, Lenker had a solo exhibition at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum. He was included in the international exhibition of ceramic art at Art Macau in Macau, China, and in the Korean International Ceramics Biennale in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, in 2021.
Lenker’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Alfred University’s Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, New York, as well as in numerous private collections.