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Joe Thurston

Joe Thurston

Dates of Exhibition: May 4th – May 31st, 2010
Opening with the artist on Thursday May 6th from 5-7:30 pm

Toomey Tourell Fine Art is pleased to announce a one person exhibition of new work by Joe Thurston. In this body of relief paintings on panel, Thurston, an Oregon based artist, continues his exploration of gesture and tactile pattern born of meticulous mark making on wood. The tactile appeal of the work must be seen first hand- only upon close examination can the deliberation of the process and the laborious technique be truly appreciated. The imagery evokes the urban detritus and shifting natural forms found close to his studio in Portland, while the palette hints at this and more- cells, maps, or a Rorschach test of inchoate unconscious symbols and signs.

In Thurston’s words, “My work takes the appearance of gestural abstraction – the shape of expressionism – but the mark making is incredibly slow, labor intensive, contemplative, meditative, and emphatically not impulsive. There is an inherent contradiction between the energy of the initial gesture and the methodical process of carving the space away.

Every stage of the process is focused and slowed down. Even the initial gesture is slowed down as the panel is stained with diluted water-based inks and dyes and allowed to dry. The stains are reshaped by tracing, and then the tracing is acknowledged or ignored and the carving begins. More color is added and the shapes are changed again. Each step is an opportunity to re-evaluate the process and to consider the choices made. The slow pace of drying the inks and dyes and the labor-intensive carving allow infinite time to consider the next step, to manipulate and to edit. The process of carving and staining contradicts the spontaneity of action painting.

In the past, I experimented with gesture after gesture until I found something simple that worked as a composition. Lately, the gestural process of the work is more complex. The inks and dyes are layered deeper on the panel and there is more of a pooling effect than a splash. At some point, I stopped erasing the prior gestures and let them all pile up–movement upon movement–achieving a certain subtlety. The work has begun to convey a narrative. Instead of shouting out a few words, a language is being constructed and sentences are being strung together.”

This is Joe Thurston’s second exhibition with Toomey Tourell.

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