Tony Thompson

December 2009

I mistrust the presumption that interpretation is the effective response to art.

It may be that the adaptive function of all the arts is simply to get people to look and listen longer and more carefully and completely.

I make things I like to look at. During the process of making them I look hard at them. This experience is pleasurable. And, when I feel they are complete I continue to look at them and the pleasure is mixed with satisfaction and joy.

Then it may occur to me that I would like to see what a variation on what I have done would look like. So the process continues.

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Tony Thompson

After an early interest in landscape and the figure Tony Thompson began his career as an
abstract painter exhibiting in the Boston and New York galleries. Thompson is still
passionate about abstract painting but when he moved to upstate New York he was
reinspired by the local landscape, the same that had been painted by the Hudson River
School painters. Thompson lives in Hudson with his artist wife, Margaret Saliske.


Selected Exhibitions
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Allersma State Museum, Groningen, Netherlands

Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson

Hoorn-Ashby Gallery, NYC

Education
Dartmouth College, Rhode Island School of Design (BFA)

Cornell U. (MFA)

New School for Social Research (MA Cognitive Psych.)

Awards and Fellowships
Fellowship Fondation des Etats-Unis, Paris

Artists Fellowship State of Mass. New York

State Arts Council CAPS Grant.


Statement

For about the last ten years I have been trying to combine what I love about landscape
painting with what I love about abstraction. The attempt is to combine, without vitiating
either, the concrete objectness of a very physical abstraction with the illusionism and rich
color of landscape. The project has produced pure landscapes and abstract paintings as
well as combinations of both in varying proportions.

To visit the artist's website click on http://www.tonythompsonpainter.com