Bio

An accomplished artist for over 40 yrs. Lependorf is a native of Philadelphia PA.

She attended the University of the Arts (Philadelphia College of Art) and later at the Philadelphia Studio School of Art and Design. She studied painting and printmaking and was under the mentorship of Gertrude Shrote.

Shelly has exhibited worldwide with solo shows in New York City, Europe, California and Pennsylvania and has received awards for her work in Painting, Printmaking and Sculpture including American Color Print Society Excellence in Printmaking, G. Noble Wagner Award for sculpture.

She is a MADI Artist and has exhibited at galleries and museums throughout. the U. S., and with other MADI artists, in Italy, France and Spain. Her art hangs at the Canadian Consulate in Montreal, at hotels in Paris, in the Suhag collection in Delhi India, and in corporate collections of NBC, RCA, United Airlines among many others.

Her rich empowered paintings convey through form, line and color the balance and harmony of the natural world.  Since the early nineties, her work has embraced classic abstract expressionism's leanings toward Asian philosophical and esthetic precepts and utilizes elements, full of "controlled abandon," that present a counterpoint to the orderliness of structural elements creating a balance of opposites. The work is richly layered while retaining a sense of space or breath that reaches for the spirit, connecting on an intimate level with complex richness, full of free flowing playful contradictions. The viewer is engaged through the mystery of the process with a skilled sensitivity to light and composition. Her work contains the impact and power of formal integrity and inherently good design.

An art critic wrote about Lependorf’s “Harmonics” series, “Each of these pieces holds language insomuch as are akin to semaphore flags. There is something incredibly ancient here, yet also as if they had just been shot from some distant dimension into our own reality sparkling in their newness.”

Since 2002, Shelly has been immersed in photography and digital printmaking in collaboration with Stan Shire. Their work combines both artist’s unique sensibilities, yet, remains cohesive. They have been shown in numerous galleries and are represented in many corporate and private collections.