NYAB Event - Anita Thacher “Detours”

Anita Thacher “Detours”

Microscope Gallery

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The New York-based artist is most widely known for her work with film, video, light installation and public art, having first gained attention with her early film works – including “Back Track”, a 1969 collaboration with Dennis Oppenheim, and the 1975 “Homage to Magritte” – that were premiered at the Museum of Modern Art. Since then her works have continued to show regularly at major institutions both in the US and abroad.

DETOURS marks Thacher’s first exhibit dedicated exclusively to painting, a practice she has most strongly emphasized during the past several years, featuring a selection of acrylic on wood works from recent, related series. A constant for Thacher, across all mediums, is an obsession with the investigation of spatial relationships through the line – here also considered specifically as manifestation of movement – and a search for deviations from conventional routes. Playful mystery, sense of elusiveness, and shifting perspectives are also central.

“I draw with a variety of mediums – light, string, tape, paper shreds, film and paint as well as pencil… . At the core of my process is a desire for discovery and surprise … building something while being completely open … and allowing mistakes and blind alleys to lead me on.” – AT

Of the works on view in DETOURS, Thacher’s approach is most visually direct in her 12 x 12 inch “Crossings” (2010), a series that extends over several works distinguished by changes of hue and texture. The titles of each reference a specific time of day, adding an unexpected level of associations with daily activities and their corresponding emotion. In the 2011 “Red Studio” series of three 19 ½ inch square acrylic and pencil works, Thacher offers red-, blue- and green-based variations of interlocking geometric shapes across which pencil outlines evoke the artistic endeavor, the planning involved, works in progress or the left undone. Additional works include two 24 x 18 inch pieces from 2012, both “Untitled”. The chromatic juxtaposition and the dialogue between the lines, dots and shapes are suggestive of other series, but now appear to have been more spontaneously assembled or subjected to chance.