The inspiration for Timothy Tompkins’s paintings stems from an interest of and engagement with the tropes and language of the medium’s historical movements such as pop, still life and history painting. Tompkins’s ideas about art-making express a combination of concepts: the material nature of painting and how the viewer perceives its surface, the history of painting as a medium, abstraction, memory, representation and technology. Using commercial sign enamel, Tompkins’s paintings are executed on 1/8” thick aluminum panels. He manipulates the liquid state of the paint to make more evident the traced contours of the image and form. This quality gives a transitory effect to the piece, as if the image is still manifesting. The Super Collider series of paintings depict abstracted images of the internal components of the Large Hadron Collider located near Geneva, Switzerland. Intrigued by the form and representation of the object and its relationship to exploration, science and philosophy, Tompkins’setherealpaintingsevokethelanguageofGothicarchitecture connecting contemporary theories of physics with timeless concepts of the human condition and spirituality.
The Spectacle series of paintings are from photographs Tompkins captures while public events are broadcast, in addition to appropriated images found online. The paintings communicate the collective energy inherent in unexpected moments of political, economic or technological displays of human aspiration. The paintings reflect, both physically and metaphorically, a relational narrative which dissolves into form and color. This effect mimics the layers of codes and semiotics of an image while simultaneously asking the viewer to participate in an expanded dialogue of contemplation and connotation of content. Additionally, the paintings reflect the influences of contemporary society, such as consumerism, mass media and digital culture. Tompkins’s interest lies in both the language of painting and contemporary theories of visual culture. He interprets images produced by mass media as a loose visual connection to painting’s history and the medium’s influence as visual communicator. The paintings play upon the idea of revealing the unseen and invoke the notion of a disjunctive relationship between observation, representation and interpretation.
Super Collider v. 10 2013 Commercial enamel on aluminum 38 x 60 in.
Super Collider v. 14 2013 Commercial enamel on aluminum 48 x 48 in.
Super Collider v.8 2013 Commercial enamel on aluminum 45 x 60 in.
Spectacle - Orbit 2013 Commercial enamel on aluminum 48 x 48 in.
Super Collider v.12 2013 Commercial enamel on aluminum 96 x 144 in. (triptych) on exhibit at Manahattan Beach Art Center November 13, 2013 - January 2014
Super Collider v.9 2013 Commercial enamel on aluminum 80 x 60 in. on exhibit at Manahattan Beach Art Center November 13, 2013 - January 2014
Super Collider v.7 2013 Commercial enamel on aluminum 40 x 60 in. on exhibit at Manahattan Beach Art Center November 13, 2013 - January 2014
TIMOTHY TOMPKINS Education: 2003 Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA. Solo exhibitions: 2014 Super Colliders, DCKT Contemporary, New York (Jan 2014) 2013 Super Collider+10, Manhattan Beach Art Center, Manhattan Beach, CA Timothy Tompkins, Texas Contemporary, Houston,TX (organized by DCKT Contemporary) Timothy Tompkins, VOLTA NY, New York, NY (organized by DCKT Contemporary) 2012 Capriccios, Heather James Fine Art, Jackson, WY 2011 New Paintings, DCKT Contemporary, New York 2009 You Want What You Can Not Have, solo painting installation, Art Brussels 27 (organized by Studio la Città, Verona, Italy) Paintings, Heather James Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA Timothy Tompkins and Morandi: After Still Life, MLB Gallery, Ferrara, Italy Temporal Arcadia, Studio la Città, Verona, Italy Painting Selections, 101 California Street, San Francisco, CA 2008 New Paintings, DCKT Contemporary, New York 2007 Left Overs, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles Projects, L.A. Left Overs, La Nuova Pesa, Centro per L’Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy 2006 Left Overs, Studio la Città, Verona, Italy 2005 pow-er, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles Projects, L.A. Manifest Destiny, DCKT Contemporary, New York 2004 New Paintings, DCKT Contemporary, New York 2003 New Paintings, Creative Artists Agency, Beverly Hills Group exhibitions: 2013 2011
Group exhibition, Benetton Foundation, Venice, Italy Forces of Nature: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation, Louisiana Art and Science Museum, Baton Rouge, LA Non Facit Saltus, painting installation, Art Cologne (organized by Studio la Città, Verona, Italy) INCOGNITO, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA Elements of Nature, Brevard Art Museum, Melbourne, FL
2010 OsCene, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA Photos and Phantasy: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Beverly Hills Municipal Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA INCOGNITO, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA Forest for the Trees, Heather James Fine Art, Jackson, WY Elements of Nature, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA 2009 Open Mind(s), Villa del Grumello, Como, Italy Contemporary Exoticism, Studio la Città, Verona, Italy Rogue Wave Massa, Margini Arte Contemporanea, Massa, Italy (organized by L.A. Louver, Venice, CA) 2008 Nature Morte, Rohrer Gallery, Laguna Beach CA Photos and Phantasy: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard CA 2007 California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, American Jewish University, Los Angeles Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Walter Maciel Gallery, L.A. Rogue Wave ’07, L.A. Louver, Los Angeles The Eclectic Eye: Selections of Fantasy and Illusion from the Frederick R Weisman Art Foundation, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans. 2006 New Code, Studio la Città, Verona, Italy Otis: Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art, Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Los Angeles 2005 Natural Selection, Davidson Galleries, Seattle Welcome 2 the Jungle, DCKT Contemporary, New York U.S. Pavilion, WorldExpo, Aichi, Japan Crude Oil Paintings, Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University 2004 Crude Oil Paintings, White Columns, New York New American Talent 18, curated by D. Molon, Arlington Art Museum, Arlington -scopeCircle Emerging Artists Exhibition, Christie’s, Beverly Hills, CA Gio Ponti: Furnished Settings and Figuration, ACME, L.A. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby, Western Project, Los Angeles 2003 SIGGRAPH Traveling Art Exhibition, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH SIGGRAPH, San Diego, CA New American Talent 18, curated by D. Molon, Jones Center for Contemporary Art, Austin, TX
2002 Wild West, 4F Gallery, Los Angeles MAKING, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Public Collections:
Bibliography: 2011 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
Meneguzzo, Marco, “Non Facit Saltus”, essay in the catalogue, illustrated pg.9 Borgenicht, Nicole, “Timothy Tompkins”, Art Ltd., May 2009 Borgenicht, Nicole, “Timothy Tompkins”, THE Art Magazine, June 2009 Meneghelli, Luigi, “Temporal Arcadia”, Essay in the catalogue Pozzati, Maura, “Timothy Tompkins and Morandi: After Still LIfe”, Essay in the catalogue Verzotti, Giorgio, “Open Mind(s): collezionismo, comasco nel contemporaneo 1978-2008”, Essay in the catalogue Kolber, Georgina. “The Horizon and the Interstate Sublime,” depARTure, November Brooks, Amira, “Timothy Tompkins”, LA Weekly, August 15 Dambrot, Shana Nys, “Rogue Wave 07”, Art Review,September Knight, Cristopher, “45 Painters Under 45 – They Help Make the L.A. Scene”, Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2007 Knight, Cristopher, “Timothy Tompkins - Glossy still lifes from retail’s rejects”, Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2007 Melrod, George, “Rogue Wave 07”, Art Ltd., September Ollman, Leah, “The Good Type of ‘Rogue’”, Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2007 West, Paige, The Art of Buying Art: An Insider’s Guide to Collecting Contemporary Art, Collins Design, New York Meneghelli, Luigi, “Left Overs”, Essay in the catalogue, 2006 P. Frank, “Patrick Wilson, Timothy Tompkins, Chris Sauter”, L.A. Weekly, January 2006 R. Zone, “Timothy Tompkins”, ArtScene, December 2005 Wagonfeld, Judy, “Artists turn the physical into the emotional in ‘Natural Selection’,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 17 E. Sorokina, “Crude Oil Paintings”, essay in the catalogue, D. Molon, “New American Talent”, essay in the catalogue
Benetton Foundation, Treviso, Italy Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles West Collection, Pennsylvania Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
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