GOLDEN HOUR

A NOTE ABOUT THE SHOW 

When I began this body of work last year, I remember a pervading sense of angst in the ether.  Conversations with friends and family were threaded with climate anxiety, doomscrolling, and a resignation to witnessing the decline of our society. Like so many people I felt the  binds of fatalism tightening around me and I just wanted to break away.

I found myself drawn to images and memories in which I was unburdened by these larger questions and focused on the moment – in the flow.  Images of people in the vigor of life – dance, play, work, love, connection. Not for the purpose of avoidance – the problems of the world remain – but to remind myself of the reason we fight for a future.

Many of my works draw inspiration from vintage photography – found photographs from antique stores or my own family albums, also silent film stars in staged photographs or stills from film and later television.  I wonder who these people are, what life was like then and what they were thinking about in the moment the picture was taken.  I imagine the strength in their limbs as they leapt, what it felt like to lean into their partner, the sun on their face that day.  I remember those kinds of moments in my own life and am grateful for them, whether they were ever as golden and wonderful as I render them now.  The photograph and the way it makes me feel when I view it transcends the reality of the moment it’s memorializing.  I want to capture that feeling through my work – both as a beloved memory and also as a cheeky comment on the human tendency to soften those memories into nostalgia with the obvious example being our obsession with social media.  And since I’m a painter, this is my medium for comment.

When you consider the iconography of our culture through the same lens there is tons of material for loving appropriation.  Cowboys, for example, elicit an entire universe of impressions that veer near and far from the reality of their history and present life.   But if the viewer sees youth and bravado in one of my cowboy portraits then we are having the same conversation even if the details of their own impressions vary widely from my own.

In another example, there are many photographs of women from the turn of the last century posed in an iconic L-shaped  semi-nudity for the male gaze, clutching a long strand of pearls.  Very sensual!  Polite society at the time viewed these as very provocative – maybe even considered them ‘dirty pictures’.  Unable to resist the beautiful composition, I painted “Icon in a Landscape” using as reference a composite of several of these photographs.  But I painted her as I felt as a whole woman myself, for my own gaze– owning my whole body, feeling the drape of the fabric against my skin, the pearls slipping between my fingers.  I had appropriated and repurposed an image to create my own set of feelings above and beyond the purpose of the originator’s intent of that moment.

This repackaging of memory and impression  is what my show “Golden Hour” refers to.  I have furthered my exploration in the combination of abstraction and realism,  collage and painting.  I’ve been utilizing fabric, handmade paper and modeling paste.  Usually beginning in water media (acrylic and spray paint)  and finishing in oil for its lovely viscosity.  When using a reference photo, I always reduce it to black and white and create my own flesh tones – which helps protect me from the literal.  I have found a lot of joy in color play and comfort in rendering the figure.

 I am unreasonably blessed by the presence of my children – young adults now – my husband and a large noisy extended family who provide constant reminders of continuity, and reasons for optimism.  I hope in your own world you can find reasons to keep your eyes and feet on the path ahead beyond the obstacles and toward something like hopefulness.

Much Love,

Kati Thomson