You are here

Michael Tompkins: Recent Paintings & Landscape Drawings

Country:

Categories:

Date: 
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
Opening: 
Saturday, 7 May 2016 - 10:00am to 6:00pm
©Michael Tompkins_Search for Timberline Trail

San Francisco, California:  The Paul Thiebaud Gallery presents Michael Tompkins: Recent Paintings & Landscape Drawings March 15 through May 7, 2016.  These concurrent shows offer several perspectives on the ability and creative output of a visual artist—three different bodies of work in medium, iconography, style, and intention—created over a period of six years.

 

As the painter explained, “First, there are the drawings:  A new body of work, in a medium usually reserved for studies, that I intended from the beginning as stand alone works.  During the years that they were in my studio, they were developed without comment or pressure, put away for periods of time and brought out again for development.  Then, there is the hint of a new direction in landscape painting, very separate from the drawings, on a very intimate scale.  Third is a continuation of still life, responding in the squares and rectangles to a constructivist streak I’ve always been drawn to, again kept in the studio and allowed to settle in awhile.” 

Berkeley-based Tompkins turned to drawings in 2011 as a respite from making very complicated, time-intensive paintings.  Normally, these interruptions would have him exploring oils on paper as studies for possible paintings.  This time, he started with simple forms such as a diagonal, a horizontal, or two curves—and no preconceived notion of the result.  As random marks were made with varying grades of pencil, from vertical lines to cross-hatches, landscapes began to suggest themselves.  The basic forms echoed shapes that he continually observed and recorded in small sketchbooks while on hikes in West Marin.  The resultant ten drawings, many large-scale, are ultimately invented places, with an emphasis on light effects, comprised of layers of uncountable marks, some erasures, then more marks. 

Continuing the exploration of still life imagery presented as if atop a shelf, this current group of paintings sees an increase in the complexity not only in objects rendered and but also in their arrangement in the composition.  The oil on wood panel paintings utilize trompe l’oeil effects while maintaining the feel of a painting.  In these works presenting clusters of objects—such as a stack of books, lichen-covered pieces of wood, an empty bottle of vinegar or a coil of yellow rope—resting upon a shelf, the artist seeks to explore formal arrangements of light, shape, color, and pattern, with an emphasis on repeated vertical and horizontal elements.

Artist ( Description ): 

The artist received his MFA from University of California at Davis in 1983, after earning his BFA there in 1981.  Tompkins was a past recipient of NEA fellowship.  He further received the prestigious Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters.  An exhibition catalogue of the Landscape Drawings is available. 

Other Info: 

Public Reception for the Artist:  Saturday, March 19, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm.

Venue ( Address ): 

Paul Thiebaud Gallery
645 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

info@paulthiebaudgallery.com

Paul Thiebaud Gallery , San Francisco

 

Related Shows This Week

view
Gathered in the Stretching Now
03/15/2024 to 04/21/2024
view
Aspects of Appearance: Portraits from the Collection in Context
02/25/2024 to 06/30/2024
view
BEYOND THE STREETS & CONTROL GALLERY PRESENT GRAFFITI ARCHIVE 1972/73: AN EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM GORDON MATTA-CLARK
03/01/2024 to 04/13/2024
view
Zhang Zhaohui: Rethinking Ink
03/22/2024 to 04/05/2024
view
Thinkspace Projects Presents Five New Exhibitions in March
03/09/2024 to 03/30/2024
view
"True Nature" Solo Art Exhibit by Karen Sikie
03/01/2024 to 03/30/2024
view
Imagined Reality, an Art Exhibition
02/25/2024 to 03/30/2024
view
Ghost Town
03/28/2024 to 04/06/2024

Pages