Margot Voorhies Thompson returns to the gallery with Oregon Outback. These works were created during her second residency at the Playa Residency Program in Summerlake, Oregon, and continues themes explored in her 2016 exhibition. The paintings feature abstracted landscapes made of the actual earth, using natural pigments, crushed rocks and minerals, and charcoal from burned forests. Layering up and scraping back, the artist employs techniques which mimic the workings of weather and time on the land, revealing buried color and visual information. The paintings emerge as a discovery.
In her paintings, Voorhies Thompson accesses an expertise in calligraphy and printmaking to combine archaic and futuristic elements and encode beneath the surface poetry, literature and song. The viewer is invited to interpret and wonder anew what is represented. Voorhies Thompson has completed commissions for institutions throughout Oregon, as well as book commissions including work for the University of Oregon Knight Library Press.