Thomas Chapman
(1975, San Diego)
Thomas Chapman is a painter who has experimented with an array of shapes and forms to support his multilayered imagery. Fabrics, collage, stolen typographies, markers, paint, pencil markings, glue and many other elements comprise the surface of his paintings. For nearly 30 years hads painted. For a majority of this time shaped canvases have occupied a prominent place in his creative output which also includes wall reliefs and sound interactive sculptures.
The shapes in Chapman’s early irregular canvases reference astral themes, later on winged beasts and other ancient sources of inspiration led to more ambitious shapes resembling figures. His unorthodox approach towards painting supports and many layers of sometimes conflicting visual information are common features in Chapman’s extraordinary oeuvre. These attributes pay homage to artists like Frank Stella and Julian Schnabel who influenced the Berlin-based artist from an early age, yet Chapman redirects these formal similarities of impulse and locates a poetry that is new and fresh.
Triumph of Pleoavcee 2008-2010