George William Thompson

Senior Art Exhibit


The paintings I am presenting in this show are images composed from my imagination. The imagination to me involves bits of memory stored within the brain in an area of the mind that is hidden from us and only exposed in the form of dreams. Dreams seem to me to be a window; when we are asleep we get to watch the brain's subconscious side. The subconscious is a storage house for our memories. The conscious mind often stores only fractions of life and can forget experiences entirely. The subconscious however seems to be able to recall nearly everything stored in the mind. Memories forgotten or neglected by the conscious are kept alive by the subconscious and the imagination.
The process of producing these images has two distinct modes. One mode is a spontaneous mode. In this mode I try to remove any constrictions from the painting and simply work from instinct. Then there is the constructive mode in which I create the image in my head before I paint. In most of these images both of these modes are used. I often begin in a spontaneous mode and work until I can see an image and then switch to a constructive mode. Never are works completely spontaneous. Like in the work Tornado, once I realized it was a tornado I was no longer working spontaneously but rather constructing the image to appear as my conscious mind wanted it to appear.
Working in a spontaneous mode seems to be a way of reaching into the subconscious. The subconscious takes in what parameters exist, the size of the canvas, the light in the studio, the music playing in the background, and responds with an intuitive reaction to the situation. Painting can be utilized to record this intuitive response. When the subconscious and the conscious mind work together it is possible to create ideas and images that are as detailed as the dreams we have little control over.
On a formal level, the images are constructs of three dimensional space. They rely on both sculptural and optical elements to define this space. Sculptural space is one in which a solid three dimensional space is created, one in which the viewer can walk around. In an optical space only the eye can enter. Colors and forms advance and recede from each other through purely optical effects. These paintings are attempts to use both structural and optical means to produce different sensations of space.

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