In January 2023 the gallery Harper’s presented a solo exhibition by Kurt Lightner in its Chelsea 512 gallery space in New York. Titled “I Hauled”, the show features a 37-foot-long hand-carved tree. Lightner’s project, which started in 2006, consists of carving words that his maternal great-great-grandfather wrote in his daily journal about life as a farmer in a fallen tree that he harvested from the woods on his paternal grandparents’ farm in Ohio. It took Kurt Lightner 7,576 words, 31,700 letters, and 15 years to complete.

Kurt Lightner (b. 1971, Troy, OH) received a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design in 1993, and an MFA from School of Visual Arts in 2004. Most recently, his work has been the subject of solo presentations at Mark Moore Fine Art, online (2022); and Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus (2019 and 2018). Lightner currently lives and works in Queens.

Kurt Lightner: I Hauled / Harper’s Chelsea 512. New York, January 14, 2023.