Gabrielle Thormann

Artist Statement:

My work has often been about an investigation and search for light:  its depth, color, blends, variations, layers, mood, character.  I've searched for and expressed it when painting still lifes, landscapes, abstractions in layers of oil, acrylic, watercolor, with cloth and thread, and sculptural surfaces.

Works shown here are inspired by landscape and incorporate investigations of light, vertical brush marks, ground pigment paint, color, mood, foreground, background, topography from above and below, materials, conceptual developments and interactions between them all.

In the dialog of medium, material and concept, I enjoy the interplay and interdependence of structure and spontaneity.  As an artist, I often choose to build structures with limits and rules that may have to be broken.  The structures and rules of the work may have to be re-examined and adapted in the context of developments.  Thus, moments of intuition, spontaneity, epiphanies, and understanding are induced.

The joy and wonder of making these systems and structures is the process of choosing, doing, watching, following, waiting for and seeing what appears.  Underlying and integral to the process and finished work is the investigation of visual and responsive interpretive meaning.

Gabrielle Thormann was born in Berkeley, California, attended San Francisco public schools,  received a BFA in Interdisciplinary Design from California College of the Arts, and MFA in Painting from Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, India.  She has been a member and chair of the San Francisco Art Institute Artists Committee, event runner and curator for Visual Aid, mentor artist for ArtSeed, and artist-in-residence in California and Wyoming.  She is a Tai Chi practitioner and now lives and works in a consensus-based live/work artist community, Developing Environments in San Francisco.