Jeffrey A. Thompson Statement
My current work is influenced by Baroque painting, with it’s exaggerated and theatrical tenebrism and hightened and dramatic emotional content. The implicit goal is to contemporize the baroque method of painting with still lifes whose subject matter are expressive of current tastes and commerce.
For example, many Baroque still lifes were highly metaphorical and aspirational, consisting of flowers that were rare and seasonally out of synch. My floral still lifes are just as opulent and not likely to occur together in nature, yet today they readily available, thanks to international commerce. What they also have in common with their inspirations is that they are vanitas; reminders of beauty’s inevitable decay.
Jeffrey A. Thompson Bio
Jeffrey Thompson grew up in upstate New York and attended Syracuse University where he studied and majored in drawing and painting earning a BFA. Upon graduating, he relocated to New York City and lived there for ten years. He currently maintains his studio practice in Des Moines, Iowa where he has resided for nineteen years.
He shows his work at Moberg Gallery in Des Moines, and has been included in exhibitions regionally and nationally. Presently, he is continuing a series of still life paintings using flowers and ordinary, everyday objects, working with glazes and oil paint on linen and canvas.