Kathleen Thum at Roy G Biv Gallery, Columbus, OH

Clemson University Assistant Professor of Art, Kathleen Thum, is exhibiting her drawings as a part of a three-person exhibition at  ROY G BIV Gallery, Columbus, Ohio.  ROY G BIV Gallery is a nonprofit art gallery located in the historic Short North neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1989, ROY G BIV is known for presenting innovative contemporary art by emerging artists from around the world.

Also on exhibit are works by Jackie Brown and Garry Noland.  The exhibition will be on display from August 3, 2013 to August 31, 2013.

Kathleen Thum's Artist Statement:

My drawings and paintings are based on various human physiological and psychological systems, which I depict through rendering abstract networks of forms, shapes, lines, marks and color. Like our internal anatomy, the structures in my works are linear, flowing, clustered, open, dense, intertwined, interpreting gravity, weight and tensions. The drawings and paintings evolve intuitively as I use color and layering to playfully create new imagery based on the fascinating and humorous inter-workings of our body functions and emotions. I often look at medical illustrations and diagrams, industrial factories and landscapes, and building systems to spark my imagination for marks and forms to use in my drawings and paintings. I observe and am fascinated with heating and cooling systems: plumbing pipes, ducts and valves in buildings and construction. These external networks performing similar functions as in our interior bodies. My interests lie in capturing the shifting of scale and function between exterior, macro, man-made formations and interior, micro, biomorphic configurations.

Kathleen Thum

Jackie Brown's Artist Statement

My work stems from an interest in biological flux and each work evolves through a series of expanding installations that aim to suggest limitless potential for growth and transformation. Through the use of viscous porous surfaces I attempt to provide a sense that the work is alive and there is intentionally a strong element of science fiction. It is often ambiguous as to whether the forms are benign or toxic and I aim to suggest mutation, as if biochemical processes are cross-wiring and melding into new and uncertain growths.

Jackie Brown

The most recent work, Brain Fruit, is based on neural networks, synaptic exchange, and the elastic potential of the mind. The green rods and orange linear elements serve as active pathways, implying circuitry and the continual pulsing of inputs and outputs. Crafting the pieces has become critical and I invest countless hours into perfecting each surface because I aim to create an illusion, a fictive world, and it is essential that the forms are believable. I think of each installation as a frozen moment in the life of the work and I hope to convey a feverish sense of immediacy and vitality, as if time has been temporarily suspended, allowing the viewer to move freely through a living, growing system.

Gary Noland's Artist Statement

In the early 2000s I made works formed, stacked and layered using the visual system of International Morse Code. The dots and dashes form the message but the message is incoherent without the spaces between the dots and dashes. This suggests, if we extend that way of thinking, that the human world’s coherence is dashed without the context of the non-human world. Similarly, numerical* majorities (whites) loose their definition without the inclusion of non-whites. One cannot tell the A, B and C apart if there is no space between. Therefore the majority and minority must be equal if they require each other for definition.**

Gary Noland

The new work is made from accumulated, stacked, layered and collaged forms. As pieces are compared to each other or as comparisons are made within each piece one sees various levels of finish.

I am very interested in conversations about what is a correct level of finish in each work and the body of work as a whole. Levels of finish suggest either an adherence to what other people think should happen or what I think should happen. It boils down to these questions:  What is Better? Who’s It Better To? and Who Are You to Decide?

I am using adhesive tapes, tape on paper, other tape. I build up layers and stacks of material. It has been a fundamental occupation of mine for as long as I can remember. I am re-inventing new forms that descend from dry-stone walls and baseball card towers I built as a kid in our rural home.  Finally I think of my grandmothers’ rag rugs and quilts fashioned from scraps of old cloth. They wouldn’t have called themselves artists but they did what artists do:  transforming material and experience into new identities.


Located in the Short North Arts District of Columbus OH for 20 years, ROY G BIV is the longest running gallery in the neighborhood. The gallery is located on the corner of Starr and High.


997 North High Street
Columbus Ohio 43201
614.297.7694

Open

3-6 WED to FRI
1-5 SAT
AND BY APPOINTMENT