fayettevillearts.org

ART SCENE: An Artist’s View of Life
by Marilyn H. Collins

Spending time with Kathy Thompson and her art is stimulating for the mind and a delight to the eye.
Her three-story studio just off the Square in downtown Fayetteville, Ark., is full of light and open space. Two of her nine-part “Lamar Series,” including “Lamar Project 6,” may be viewed on the second level. This series is an introspective work that first speaks from a layer of hand-drawn silkscreen, processed on 44 x 60-inch pieces of paper. The added visuals illustrate Thompson’s interest in repeated themes. Individual and connecting rows of circles draw the viewer into her layers of thought and design. Circles are a pattern that she continues to explore in her art.

“Bundling” is another repeated theme. The bundles in this work represent how people find release from their isolation — wrapped solitarily within themselves — to join and bind together.
“I like repetition. You will find a continuum of thought through all my work over the years regardless of the medium,” Thompson said.
Every three or four years, Thompson creates a series of self portraits. While listening to her discuss her creations, I came to believe that all of her work is a portrait of some part of herself — just expressed in different ways.

“Self Portrait 2” gives an intriguing three-dimensional window into her soul. The portrait seems to draw the viewer into the painting through the recessed, exposed eye in the face. Or is the person looking through a torn mesh wire to the outside world? Within the eye are three flattened, chestnut shells Thompson gathered on the grounds of The Hague in Brussels.
“I just liked them,” Thompson said. “I collect objects that appeal to me wherever I go.”
One might think the streaks of white paint across the face represent a mask. “No,” she said, “the head just turned fast, swirling around to look at the world. Not sad, not happy — just paying attention to her life.”
Thompson believes her freedom as a child to roam the woods near her home in El Dorado, Ark., gave her the basis to bring her thoughts into art. Her grandmother was also an important influence in her life. At a time when business was not the usual woman’s work, her grandmother shared her professional life with Thompson in ways that she only began to realize as she grew up and saw how those early lessons became a part of her adult life.

(Please see the January 2008 issue of AY magazine to read the article in its entirety).

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