Storm Tharp “Ashby Lee Collinson”
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery
This event has ended.
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery presents Storm Tharp's first solo exhibition in New York
Using one model, Ashby Lee Collinson, as the basis of this body of work, Tharp explores the uncanny potential of portraiture. This recent body of drawings represents a departure from Tharp's past portraits, which combined aspects of fictional characters from film, literature, and art history, as well as those of the artist's own invention. Under the constraint of working from a single model, the immediacy of impression comes to the fore, and the portraits become a cinematic character study comprised of a collection of ephemeral moments, expressions and gestures.
Tharp's technique of manipulating pooled ink and delicately applying dry pigment on paper creates an exquisite tension where representation and abstraction bleed into one another, recalling the baroque distortions of Francis Bacon and late Picasso. At times control of materials is relinquished, allowing for their inherent unruliness to guide the composition; at others a tight restraint is achieved.
Through bursts of color and chaotic gray depths, an airy light pours through each drawing, reminiscent of the melancholic beauty and vastness of the Pacific. Much like the figures in Hockney's California works, Ashby's manner is disconnected, her gaze ambiguous. Through line and gesture, Tharp allows Ashby's posture and style to carry emotive qualities: we are drawn into the artist's fascination for his muse. Ashby performs her own life, with an earnest, intense vulnerability. Storm Tharp lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Media
Schedule
from October 29, 2010 to December 31, 2010
Opening Reception on 2010-10-29 from 18:00 to 20:00