Reece Thompson

In the past my art has been primarily representational. Recently, I've had the chance to expand my horizons and experiment with the experience of drawing. Now, as I start the process of drawing I try to withhold conscious direction, not responding to abstract mental concepts but to the experience of a particular time, place, person or even sound. As an image starts to form from this doodling process it's inevitable that it awaken to consciousness.

My task then is to keep moving, withholding aesthetic judgments and flowing with the feeling process that fills one with joy when drawing is spontaneous and unreserved. I feel as though I am creating a visually evocative language that is as yet undefined and shrouded in mystery. This process, along with science, philosophy and metaphysics, helps manifest my desire to confront the mystery of existence without demystifying it.

This seeming contradiction is simultaneously the journey and destination blended together in harmony. For me it seems that art and science, quantum physics in particular, have beautiful, sublime parallel visions. Within the rarefied atmosphere at the highest levels of art and science exists the implicit power for either training the morality of society or perversely subverting it. With this in mind I enjoy entertaining the thought that the intrinsic value of art for it’s beneficiaries is not monetary but in it’s ability to feed the spirit and dispel selfish desires.

At this juncture of my journey I feel it necessary to nurture a playfulness, be unpretentious and embrace painting as a wonderful, virtuous endeavor and possibly convey this through my art. In exploring this domain it is inevitable that some of the work have dark connotations and conjure up anxiety in a yin to yang response. It is my hope that this produces a cathartic affect in the viewer as it does in me, resulting in a calm akin to the one experienced after an adrenaline rush. Pablo Picasso said “painting is a way of seizing power by giving form to our terrors as well as to our desires.” Ultimately, in the end, the goal is transformation and growth, leading me to one irreducible conclusion: When I get out of the way it happens.