'Back on track': Kathy Thompson exhibits first large solo show in 10 years
BY CASSIE HUFFMAN, Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Friday, November 10, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/WhatsUp/46945/
Kathy Thompson has had her hands full.
Recent years have found the Fayetteville artist relocating her father, remodeling her house, designing the interior for Bordinos, creating commissioned works and teaching in her downtown studio.
That hasn't left a whole lot of time for personal expression. In fact, her show that opened Wednesday at Fayetteville's new ddp gallery is her first large solo show in 10 years.
"I've been busy ... but it never seems like my work. It starts to weigh heavily on you because you're not getting that part of you out and expressing yourself," Thompson said. "But now I'm back on track and it's great."
The show includes five self-portraits and two "paintings under paintings," as Thompson calls them, but is mainly composed of large silkscreens created during a 10-day residency in March at Lamar Outdoor Advertising, a national billboard factory headquartered in Baton Rouge, La.
Winifred Ross Riley, Thompson's close friend and former business partner who is married to the president of the company, invited her down to use the facilities at the factory, which was phasing out its silkscreen operations.
The result was the "Lamar Project Series," a series of large-scale silkscreens that feature bright, overlapping blocks of color enclosing and overlaid with circles, organic shapes, patterns and Thompson's recurring image of bundles.
"They're about being bound, about tying things up -- our emotions, our lives -- in ways we really don't mean to," she said. "They're about the way we go about dealing with things ... about misunderstandings."
Circles, which are dominant in the silkscreens, are an emerging image in Thompson's works.
"It's a simple image we've seen all our lives in different ways. It's the age-old symbol of life and death ... the circularness of thought," she said.
Thompson embellished most of the silkscreens, using primarily pastels because of their transparent quality, as well as oil paint and pencils.
"I like being able to see down through things, to see into something. And I like the way it looks because you get so many textures," she said.
Three silkscreens displayed in the show were left untouched, which was hard to do, she said.
"I couldn't bring myself to do anything to them because I liked them the second I pulled them off the press," Thompson said. "And I like people to know the process. These show them how the others evolved."
The two "paintings under paintings" were works owned by her father that she started in 1985.
"A lot of times I work over old works because I don't like them anymore," she said. "I may still take them down and work on them some more."
The works are heavily collaged with memorabilia from Thompson's life, including love letters, maps, drawings by her son Quin, sandpaper discs, nails and other materials.
Although she has created self-portraits before, those on display are the first to have insets, which are covered with wire mesh and house different objects: small wooden houses in one, what appear to be blunted nails in another.
"I tried to place them in places where I was looking at something or thinking or feeling something," she said. "My work has always been about me working things out for myself. They're interesting and colorful, but ... the meaning is much different than the surface reaction is ... and I like that."
Thompson said she plans to explore the self-portaits more through a series of torso paintings and will be using circles a lot more in her works.
"This has been the best thing for me about this show because now I know where I'm going next," she said.
* * *
'RECENT WORK' BY KATHY P. THOMPSON
When: through Dec. 9
Where: ddp gallery, 7 E. Mountain St., Fayetteville
Hours: noon to 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and by appointment
* For details, call 442-0001 or visit www.ddpgallery.com.
* An artist's reception will take place from 5-8 p.m. today.
