Limp wrist exchange
Limp wrist exchange
2022 - ongoing
red micron and Stabilo originals on various papers including newsprint, drawing paper and bristol, colored artist tapes, sizes vary but generally around 4" x 6"
First curated into Slump by Jerstin Crosby
at Lump and then traveled to the Atlanta Contemporary
Up next, Illustrating a Point curated by Mark Bradley - Shoup at Stove Works Aug 1 - Sept 25th, 2025
Limp wrist exchange is a visual exchange with artists, friends, acquaintances and lovers. Each participant sends me a pic of their wrist gone limp and I collaborate with them to make an initial drawing. I see if they Iike it and then I make 2 or 3 drawings for them to choose from. I use the rest for exhibition purposes. No funds exchanged, collaborator credited.
Amy White - "Bill Thelen's untitled limp wrist project covers much of the Drawing Room annex wall. These are interactive drawings based on photos people sent to the artist in response to his request for shots of their limp wrists. The project is a canny power move by Thelen – up there with the reclaiming of the term queer in the 80s. The visual reclaiming of body-language cliché epithet celebrates and recalibrates what has historically functioned as a denigrating trope of [specifically gay, male] flamboyance*** by creating what feels like a solidarity wall papered over with drawing upon drawing of images of limp wrists en repose, i.e., held aloft, hand and fingers relinquished downward to gravitational pull. The works are not gender-coded, and they’re not color coded; they’re disencoded.** There is an expanded iteration of the project as part of the exhibition proper, a single outsized limp wrist outlined in relief with woven embroidery floss, tape and pins."