Jon Thompson
18 Sep - 25 Oct 2014
JON THOMPSON
The Lyotard Suite
18 September - 25 October 2014
Anthony Reynolds Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new paintings by Jon Thompson.
During the last four years Thompson has made paintings that use simple vertical and horizontal divisions of the canvas. While continuing to work with a four-fold division, Thompson’s new paintings explore certain minimal modifications of corner-to-corner diagonals. This has allowed him to incorporate a five-fold division representing the senses, what Jean-Francois Lyotard refers to as ‘the five woundings’. Generated from a common centre or zero point, these two systems - working together - allow for the creation of colour-forms which appear to bend and twist away from the picture plane. They seem almost to inhabit the space of the viewer. The starting point for this extraordinary new series of works are Lyotard’s unfinished commentaries on theConfessions of St.Augustine in which he adopts a phenomenological approach to the relationship between body and spirit, sensing and thinking. Taking their cue from geometric theories of different kinds, Lyotard’s commentaries are packed with vivid imagery of enclosure and unfurling, of filling and emptying out. Thompson’s understanding of these structures, coupled with his brilliance as a colourist makes for ‘simple’ paintings of great complexity; sophisticated, beautiful and profound.
Thompson’s new work is always eagerly anticipated. Recent paintings have been acquired by collectors in the USA, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, France, South Korea and the UK.
Jon Thompson The Lyotard Suite will open on 17 September at 6 pm.
Born in 1936, Thompson has exhibited internationally since the 1960’s and is represented in major collections including Tate. In addition to his work as a painter he has been a uniquely influential educationalist, curator and writer. Responsible, as Dean of Fine Art, for the development of Goldsmiths College as the hotbed of new talent in this country and afterwards Head of Fine Art at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, Thompson was also curator of many important exhibitions, including Falls the Shadow (1986, with Barry Barker) and Gravity and Grace (1993) at the Hayward Gallery. Most recently, he curated the exhibition Inner Worlds Outside (2006) at the Whitechapel Gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Thompson is also author of numerous artist monographs and other texts and essays, many of which are published in ‘The Collected Writings of Jon Thompson’, (Ridinghouse, 2011).
The Lyotard Suite
18 September - 25 October 2014
Anthony Reynolds Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new paintings by Jon Thompson.
During the last four years Thompson has made paintings that use simple vertical and horizontal divisions of the canvas. While continuing to work with a four-fold division, Thompson’s new paintings explore certain minimal modifications of corner-to-corner diagonals. This has allowed him to incorporate a five-fold division representing the senses, what Jean-Francois Lyotard refers to as ‘the five woundings’. Generated from a common centre or zero point, these two systems - working together - allow for the creation of colour-forms which appear to bend and twist away from the picture plane. They seem almost to inhabit the space of the viewer. The starting point for this extraordinary new series of works are Lyotard’s unfinished commentaries on theConfessions of St.Augustine in which he adopts a phenomenological approach to the relationship between body and spirit, sensing and thinking. Taking their cue from geometric theories of different kinds, Lyotard’s commentaries are packed with vivid imagery of enclosure and unfurling, of filling and emptying out. Thompson’s understanding of these structures, coupled with his brilliance as a colourist makes for ‘simple’ paintings of great complexity; sophisticated, beautiful and profound.
Thompson’s new work is always eagerly anticipated. Recent paintings have been acquired by collectors in the USA, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, France, South Korea and the UK.
Jon Thompson The Lyotard Suite will open on 17 September at 6 pm.
Born in 1936, Thompson has exhibited internationally since the 1960’s and is represented in major collections including Tate. In addition to his work as a painter he has been a uniquely influential educationalist, curator and writer. Responsible, as Dean of Fine Art, for the development of Goldsmiths College as the hotbed of new talent in this country and afterwards Head of Fine Art at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, Thompson was also curator of many important exhibitions, including Falls the Shadow (1986, with Barry Barker) and Gravity and Grace (1993) at the Hayward Gallery. Most recently, he curated the exhibition Inner Worlds Outside (2006) at the Whitechapel Gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Thompson is also author of numerous artist monographs and other texts and essays, many of which are published in ‘The Collected Writings of Jon Thompson’, (Ridinghouse, 2011).