Date
October 10, 2025 - November 15, 2025
Time
11:00 am - 5:00 pm
Esmé Thompson | Recent Paintings
October 10-November 15 | E.N. Wennberg Gallery
Opening reception: Friday, October 10, 5-7 PM | Artist talk with Esmé Thompson and Patrick Dunfey: Friday, October 17, 5:30-7:00 PM
Esmé Thompson | Recent Paintings | E.N. Wennberg Gallery
Exhibition Statement | This immersive work consists of painted, shaped wooden panels arranged to create a choreographed sequence of design and color that flows through the space. The paintings on the walls are grouped by tone and hue, guiding visitors through an impression of dawn on the first wall, to the brilliance of daylight on the center wall, and finally into the deepening colors of evening and night on the third. For decades, Thompson has explored painting as an environment—an art form that doesn’t simply hang on walls, but surrounds, guides, and transforms the viewer’s sense of space. Her work has taken many forms: labyrinths of painted Plexiglas screens, shaped canvases, and multi-panel compositions. Her piece Blue Divide was described by the Hood Museum in 2011 as “a serial work that emphasizes both pattern and repetition. While its individual elements function as separate small paintings, they also work as parts of a larger whole, echoing and mirroring the works either adjacent to them or positioned similarly within. Thompson has always been interested in how painting and sculpture might intermingle, and she combines these media in ways that challenge their traditional boundaries.” This installation unfolds in four chromatic movements—each a symbolic realm. The divisions, defined by their dominant hues, suggest three symbolic realms: the yellow of dawn, the red of the earth, and the blue of the heavens. Thompson has drawn on her interest in Italian Beatus paintings for the structure of her color hierarchy.
Biography | Esmé Thompson is a New Hampshire–based artist and Professor Emerita of Studio Art at Dartmouth College. An exhibiting member of New York City’s Bowery Gallery, Thompson is known for richly layered works that draw inspiration from art, craft, and design traditions around the world. Her creative practice is fueled by extensive travel and immersive study. In Italy, she has been a resident fellow at both the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation, delving into medieval painting and decorative arts. In Morocco, she explored the vibrant worlds of ceramic and fiber art; in Ireland, the intricate beauty of Celtic manuscripts and lacemaking; and in Australia, the profound visual storytelling of Aboriginal art in Kakadu and Uluru. Thompson’s art can be viewed on Artsy.net and at esmethompsonart.com. Her 2011 exhibition at the Hood Museum was accompanied by the catalogue Esmé Thompson: The Alchemy of Design, a testament to her mastery of transforming tradition into contemporary expression.
Artist Statement | Esmé Thompson’s paintings form a topography of painted, stacked wooden shapes that connect and disconnect across gallery walls, evoking natural forces both vast and intimate. Whether suggesting the shifting of tides and winds or the unfolding of a flower, the works are conceived to move and animate within the exhibition space, interacting with one another. Thompson’s practice blurs the boundaries between high and low art, celebrating objects made by human hands across time and cultures. Her work embodies possibility and change, inviting viewers into a cyclical, cumulative experience rather than a linear one. The repeated, interrelated forms create a visual rhythm that unfolds like an organic pattern of growth, encouraging a journey that continues beyond the first encounter.
AVA Gallery and Art Center
11 Bank Street
Lebanon, NH 03766
603-448-3117
info@avagallery.org
____________________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release:
Esmé Thompson
Recent Paintings
March 26 – April 20, 2024
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 28, 5-8pm
Closing Salon: Saturday, April 20, 3-5pm
With an opening reception on March 28th, the Bowery Gallery is pleased to present the latest evolution of painted, shaped, and layered panels by Esme´ Thompson. Grouped in lively rapport on gallery walls, the exhibition is a thoughtfully choreographed dance of color and design. Surprising intersections and overlaps intrigue the eye from afar, while varying surfaces invite closer inspection. From any distance and at any scale, Thompson’s alchemy of design, pattern, and color reveals itself like layers of treasure, animated throughout by energy and invention.
The visual vocabulary of this work feels both historically familiar yet contemporary. Its abstraction is universal, while its touch and sources are distinctly personal. Thompson develops beautifully intricate color relationships without losing her exuberance of spirit. Moments of delicate balance are interrupted by vigorous squiggle, solid surfaces are punctuated by open air, and complex relationships of two-and three-dimensional space are relieved by a dash of whimsey. Structure and impulse complement each other, guided by a disciplined eye and demanding intent.
Thompson says, “I have designed this new body of work to have a topography of stacked wooden shapes that weave and wind, connecting and disconnecting throughout and implying natural forces both large and small. Whether it be the shifting tides or winds found in nature (Coriolis), or the unfolding of a flower (Helianthus), the paintings are intended to animate and move across the wall, interacting with each other. I seek to make paintings that blur the boundaries between high and low art and celebrate objects people have made throughout time and across cultures. My work represents possibility and embodies change. The repeated, interrelated images are meant to allow for a cyclical and cumulative, rather than linear, reading. The experience of viewing the painting becomes a journey that continues to unfold, reminiscent of an ongoing pattern of organic growth.”
Thompson’s travels inform and enliven her art. She has been a resident of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy studying medieval painting and decorative arts. She has travelled to Morocco to study ceramic and fiber art, Ireland to study Celtic manuscripts and lacemaking and Australia to view aboriginal art in Kakadu and Uluru. Thompson lives in New Hampshire and is Emeritus Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College.
The Bowery Gallery is located at 547 West 27th Street, Suite 508 (5th Floor), NYC
Gallery Hours: Tues-Saturday, 11am - 6pm, 646-230-6655, www.bowerygallery.org
For further information or digital reproductions contact Esmé Thompson, 603-398-7588, esme.thompson@dartmouth.edu or visit www.esmethompsonart.com