Artist Statement
My paintings evolve from drawings. I relocate the figure: imagined in memory and isolation, intuited in meditation, distorted through commercial ideals, observed and echoed through a personal history. The drawings begin to carve out an unknown space, stand on a painted space and pursue futuristic and ancient forms.
It’s important for me to work with materials mined from the natural world. It invokes a power of creation abstracted from myself as a maker. My surfaces are layered and carved out to reveal the growth and redaction of layers. I incorporate elemental materials as additives to my oil paintings: marble dust, activated charcoal, and sheepskin. Sourced through varying degrees of entropy, adornment and purification — the layering of them exists as a process to fuse the current of time with image and object.
The work is a process of transcription, as well as the development of legacy through a feminist lens. Making has served as the primary mode of communication between my Grandma Kee and myself. Her need for a deeper engagement with the world called her to a communal compound, introducing her to Zen ideals and philosophy and eventually to a final pilgrimage in the southwestern deserts of New Mexico, where she was able to realize herself as a solitary person and maker. Drawings, paintings, bags of sand, and chunks of turquoise were exchanged as mementos of connectivity and surrogacy. Upon her passing she asked to have my work and tokens cremated along with her body — rendered to ash and microscopic bones.
CV
EDUCATION
2008 Masters of Fine Arts, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
2006 Bachelors of Fine Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2014
Remixes for Reunions, Interlochen School For the Arts, Interlochen, MI
2011
Highlights, Low Fades, and Deep Cuts, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015
(Forthcoming) Peer Review, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London, London, UK
(Forthcoming) Spirit of the Dead Watching, Dan Devening Projects, Chicago, IL
NEWD Art Show, 106 Green, Brooklyn, NY
Tidal Pool, Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Long Distance Boyfriends and Other Optimism in Digital Art, The Webber Gallery at the College of Central Florida, Ocala, FL
2014
Your Attica on the Pacific, TSA LA, Los Angeles, CA
2013
No Kineme Stands Alone, 106 Green, Brooklyn, NY
MICAPAIRS, 92Y Tribeca, New York, NY
2012
UP/DO, Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York, NY
Pig Party, NEW YORK CITY, New York, NY
Growing Pains, Sadie Halie, Brooklyn, NY
Huzzy, Garden Party Arts, Brooklyn, NY
Grid List, Allegra La Viola, New York, NY
Grid List, Center Galleries, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
2011
Tracy Thomason and Bettina Yung, MDW Chicago Art Fair, Chicago, IL
Neon Rainbow, French Neon, New York, NY
The Shape of Things to Come, Nudashank Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2010
Rappaport, Thomason, Subkoff & Marnie, James Fuentes LLC, New York, NY
Anti-Anti/Non-Non, Hal Bromm Gallery, New York, NY
Bring Your Own Art, X-Initiative, New York, NY
Born To Die, Secondhome Projects/ Temp IX, Berlin, Germany
2008
The Grey House That Thinks Itself Into Your Head Without Asking, Peter Fingestein Gallery, Pace University, New York, NY
Here and Now– 2008 Graduate Degree Exhibition, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI
2007
Fresh, Lemberg Gallery, Ferndale, MI
X-Change Show, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2014
The Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency with Dana Schutz, New Smyrna Beach, FL
Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship Fund, The Atlantic Center for the Arts
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Scott, Indrisek, 5 Must-See Gallery Shows in New York, BLOUIN ARTINFO, May 2015 http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/1149786/5-must-see-gallery-shows-in-new-york-jamian-juliano-villani
Rooney, Kara, “Fresh For(u)ms” Garden Party/Arts, The Brooklyn Rail, September 2012 http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/08/artseen/fresh-forums-garden-partyarts
Feige, Jacob, “Tracy Thomason: Highlights, Low Fades, and Deep Cuts”, Title Magazine, August 2011 http://www.title-magazine.com/2011/08/tracy-thomason-highlights-low-fades-and-deep-cuts/
Giannini, Melissa, “Peach Fuzz and Cream, Tiger Strikes Asteroid”, August 2011
http://philadelphia.tigerstrikesasteroid.com/post/15706700568/tracy-thomason-highlights-low-fades-deep-cuts
Rochester, Katherine, August First Friday Picks, review, Philadelphia Weekly, August 2011
Smith, Matthew, “The Shape of Things to Come”, New American Paintings Blog, May 2011 https://newamericanpaintings.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/the-shape-of-things-to-come/
LECTURES AND TEACHING APPOINTMENTS
2015
Instructor of Mixed Media, Book Arts, and Sculpture, Interlochen School for the Arts
2014-Present
Cooper Union, Continuing Education Instructor, NY, NY
Guest Lecturer and Teaching Artist, Interlochen School for the Arts, Interlochen, MI
2011
Guest Critic, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
Guest Artist, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey
2010
Guest Artist and Critic, University of Tennessee, Knoxville