Larry Thomas: Ploys & Decoys

s y o c e D & s y o l P : s a m o h T Larr y

Larry Thomas

Ploys & Decoys January 17, 2010 – February 28, 2010 A Trail of Pixels in the Forest One of the defining aspects of the 21st century is the ever-growing visual relationship between the physical and virtual world. As new digital imaging technologies and environments evolve toward the organic structure of the human user, their application allows us to peer deeper into distant realms, both real and theoretical, from the cellular to the celestial.

In an age of body scans, virtual-reality avatars, cloning, microchip implantation, and genetic engineering, popular culture and the media bombard us with conflicting messages of the positive and negative impact of technology upon our society. The entertainment industry gives us overblown, hyperbolic extrapolations, graphically rendered in films and video games, while rational and irrational fears drive the application of stealth technology within our nation’s armed forces at home and abroad.

Artist Larry Thomas in his studio, 2009. Image courtesy of the artist.

With greater frequency, we reference the natural world as a place outside humanity’s endeavor to bring order, rationale, and civility to itself. Beyond the margins of our urbane existence, however, lies a wooly and undiscovered wilderness of cells, pixels, particles, and the imagination.

This space between the natural and material world is a field that remains ripe for exploration and exploitation.

It is a natural state of disorder, where hard drives crash, images fragment, batteries die, viruses cause cascading system failures, and order and chaos find embrace.

Dwelling within this wilderness, Larry Thomas uses the visual language of simulation and camouflage to communicate with would-be travelers to his domain. In his latest series of paintings and prints, Thomas utilizes this language as a metaphoric trail of breadcrumbs to explore what it means to reveal and conceal identity.

Thomas’ method-as-message approach illuminates the relationship between our society’s manifold application of camouflage as a defense mechanism and its preeminent use throughout the natural world. Along the way, he also reminds us that chaos is an elegant process by which dissolution and evolution occur, and that our human systems all share similar strengths and vulnerabilities.

Approved Paranoia, 2009. Image courtesy of the artist.

Acrylic and Ultra-Chrome ink on paper, 17 x 16 inches (image size), 27 x 25 inches (frame size).

Depending upon the perspective of the viewer, one might interpret Thomas’ compositional flows as existential purges or, conversely, as identity lost within a consumptive mass.

This glass half-full, half-empty scenario shifts among Thomas’ titles, aptly validating multiple points of view within work that clarifies and obscures by design.

Thomas creates paintings that are of our time, using digital imaging and formatting technologies in printmaking to establish a visual synthesis between what is actual paint and printed image. In this sense, Thomas explores the subject of camouflage with an honest acknowledgment that he implicates himself in this process of deception between what is real and simulated within his own work.

To this end, Thomas employs both literal and digital collage, concealing the edges of the printed surface with painterly gesture while simultaneously composing digital images that mimic the expressive potential of paint. Within the artist’s studio sits a giant color printer, a computer, and a large easel — three devices that command equal space and use from the artist to achieve his unified images.

Thomas actually begins his work with a roving eye, and a mutable approach to a vast cache of photographs, digital images, and computer scans of miscellaneous objects found at thrift stores, estate sales, and auctions. A piece

Mummer’s Lure, 2010. Image courtesy of the artist.

Acrylic, Ultra-Chrome ink, and collage on paper, 17 x 16 inches (image size), 27 x 25 inches (frame size).

of ductwork, a pile of unwanted costume jewelry, old army photographs, barbed wire, rubber bands, colorful plastic toys, branches, images of bones, computerized graphs, and medical charts all become fodder for manipulation and abstraction. In addition to these images, Thomas maintains a photographic library of commissioned artist-model poses and self-portraits that become a reference for the creation of figures concealed within his compositions.

From a distance, Thomas’ paintings and prints appear as magical abstractions, whirlwinds and torques of line, local color, and the occasional pixilated grid surrounded by neutral-toned atmospheres. Upon closer inspection, however, we may begin to make out certain details of the aforementioned objects, embedded within swathes of color and texture that move as if caught in the vortex of a tornado. Seeded with memory, nostalgia, and emotion, these clouds hover as manifestations of dense auras or protective force fields — anamorphic and buoyant vehicles for the mysterious trajectory of everyday life.

— Marcus Cain, Curator Erroneous Wind, 2009. Image courtesy of the artist.

Acrylic and Ultra-Chrome ink on paper, 17 x 16 inches (image size), 27 x 25 inches (frame size).

Larry Thomas

Ploys & Decoys

January 17, 2010 – February 28, 2010 Established in 1991, the purpose of the Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art (KCJMCA) is to provide innovative art exhibitions and related programming that engage seniors and diverse audiences from all segments of our community to enrich lives and celebrate our common humanity through art. KCJMCA realizes this goal through a cooperative partnership with Village Shalom, an assisted living facility that houses KCJMCA’s Epsten Gallery, and through partnerships with local,regional and national institutions that participate in KCJMCA’s Museum Without Walls exhibition program.

Acknowledgements: Exhibiting artist Larry Thomas wishes to thank Pam Thomas and Collin Thomas, the staff of the Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art, Beniah Leuschke, Johnson County Community College, Bruce Hartman, Larry Meeker, Tom Tarnowski, Mark and Amy Cowardin, Laura Gascogne, Juniper Tangpuz, Betty Furtwengler, Michael Garrett, Tom Clayton, Todd Moran, Hillary Stalnaker, Ken Van Dusseldorp, Ray Stolhand, and Vicki Hill.

Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art (KCJMCA) would like to thank exhibiting artist Larry Thomas and the Lighton Foundation for making this exhibition and catalogue brochure possible. Additionally, this program is presented in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, at state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. KCJMCA also wishes to thank the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, Jewish Heritage Foundation of Greater Kansas City, the Flo Harris Supporting Foundation, Bank of America, Francis Family Foundation, and H&R Block for their ongoing support of our programs. We also wish to thank our UrbanSuburban Patrons and Artists, members of the Friends of KCJMCA and our volunteers.

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Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art Epsten Gallery | Museum Without Walls 5500 West 123rd Street, Overland Park, KS 66209 Ph: 913.266.8413 | Fx: 913.345.2611 www.kcjmca.org

STAFF Eileen Garry, Executive Director Marcus Cain, Curator Abby Rufkahr, Development & Program Assistant

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Regina Kort, President Lynn Intrater, Vice President Peggy Krigel, Vice President Lynn Schweig, Secretary Peter Beren, Treasurer Herb Adler Dick Anderson Sylvia Augustus Stuart Bitterman Sherry Cromwell-Lacy Anne Gill Jacqueline Epsten, Honorary Linda Lighton Sharon Lund Jules Moskowitz Barbara Smith Paul Sokoloff Irma Starr Ellen Taylor Sherman Titens Joni Weiner Shirley White

PAST PRESIDENTS Saul Kass (Of Blessed Memory) Michael Klein Hugh Merrill Larry Meeker Sybil & Norman Kahn, Founders