Margot Voorhies Thompson
For the month of April, Russo Lee Gallery exhibits Letters from a Remote Landscape by Margot Voorhies Thompson. In the words of the artist, this exhibition “reveals the transcendent nature and austere beauty of this remote landscape”. Referring to the Oregon Outback, Thompson has immersed herself for decades in the geographic features of Southeastern Oregon. Her paintings evoke a joyful excitement and capture the unique qualities found in the natural environment; dark green conifers, dramatic cloudscapes, acid green lichens, violet gray and red oxide rocks. The ancient petroglyphs on the faces of massive rocks are also a source of subject matter for Thompson. As a calligrapher, the artist is studied in both ancient symbols and early alphabets. Several paintings in this new body of work incorporate these wonderous glyphs.
A Portland native, Margot Voorhies Thompson studied at Lewis and Clark College, Reed College, the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and at the Hochschule Für Künsterlische in Linz, Austria. Her work is in the collections of: the Portland Art Museum; the Brooklyn Art Museum; the Stanford University Hospital; and the Printmaking Workshop in New York, among others. She has completed several collaborative book commissions with Kim Stafford, Pattiann Rogers, and Wendell Berry for the University of Oregon’s Knight Library Press. Other commissions include pieces for Oregon University of Health and Sciences, Portland; Portland State University; Kaiser Permanente, Tualatin, OR; the Woodstock Branch Multnomah County Library, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, both in Portland, and Oregon State Hospital in Salem, OR. Thompson is currently the subject of a film documentary under production about her work and creative process.
Thompson talks about her love of going into the Southeast Oregon desert near Hart Mountain and Plush, her action paintings made on the ground, the meaning of petroglyphs in her world, and colors of lichen and the Hollywood sunsets of the region.