Cheyney Thompson

Galleria Raucci Santamaria, Naples
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2009

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the background is slightly warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Extremely close inspection reveals a few extremely faint and unobtrusive rub marks in isolated places to the extreme outer edges. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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An explosive vibration of colourful grids interspersed with swathes of white, Cheyney Thompson’s Chronochrome is a chromatic raster of different hues evoking Modernist-abstract compositions paired with the digital production mechanisms of the twenty-first century. Described as “kits for producing 21^st-century paintings” by art historian David Joselit, the Chronochromes can be viewed alongside the Xerox-printed paintings of Wade Guyton both referencing non-objective and ultimately deductive compositions created with instruments associated with modern-day mass production rather than traditional painting (Ibid., p. 129).

The painting’s compositional pattern is derived from a magnified digital scan of the painting’s linen support, elevating the medium as a subject itself as well as underlining the fabricated pattern as both an industrial and aesthetic form. The different paint colours, meticulously applied by the artist, are chosen according to the colour theories of artist-theorist Albert H. Munsell. With each colour prescribed to illustrate a particular time of day or night and the saturation determined by month, the flow of time is shown through traces of measurable effort, with luminous white representing the suns highest point in the sky and sharp black the darkness of night. The colours and hours between create a vibrant array of pulsating ripples, with luminous yellow contrasting against radiant azure. Thompson’s structured application of paint restrains colour into a systematic spectrum, detaching it from its bonds as a mere support for digital information, giving it a function beyond the aesthetic (Simon Baier, ‘Dead Time Painting’, in: Ann Lauterbach et al., Cheyney Thompson: Metric, Pedestal, Cabengo, Landlord, Récit, London 2013, p.180). This calendrical display bares indication of the artist’s presence, but the mystery lies in the hours Thompson did not paint, leaving the viewer yearning for further insight into this ambiguous yet personal artistic journal.

By referencing the dualities of the hand-painted versus mechanical production, rational choices of colour versus accidental optical effects, these non-objective paintings push the boundaries of the conventional notion of painting and lead into an enquiry of what painting in the 21^st century consists of. Transforming the traditional cycle of painting to create another world, Thompson paints to contradict the notion of composition using a new framework which according to Simon Baier leaves the cycle ‘torpedoed from the outset’ (Ibid., p. 179). Summarised best by Roberta Smith as “an artist with radical intent who can’t help but make beautiful objects”, Thompson’s pioneering contemporary attitude towards the progression of art and systematic advancement of technology amass to create a truly relevant oeuvre, with Chronochrome impeccably displaying these chore philosophies.