BEACON, NY.- Matteawan Gallery is presenting Thomas Huber: After Some Time, a solo exhibition of mixed media paintings and drawings. This is Hubers second solo show at the gallery. The show runs through Sunday, December 17.
Thomas Hubers paintings and works on paper are composed of disparate images and materials arranged on a white background. He begins each work with a thickly sculpted gesso ground that becomes the support for a collage of found lists, scraps of paper with diagrams, doodles, and other personal notations revealing recognizable and semirecognizable images and words. Huber also uses various media including photo transfers, acrylics, Venetian plaster, wax, and varnish to create layers of organic processes and architectural forms that flow in and out of each other. Huber describes his use of various unrelated media as a free flowing record of open creative process over time that calls into question dualities such as flatness and perspective, internal and external, past and future. Fluctuating between open spaces and dense imagery, his compositions create a sense of movement and energy that suggest that something is about to happen.
This show introduces Hubers new series of works on paper featuring three-dimensional elements such as folded paper, pieces of burlap, thick gesso, and copper wire. There is a sculptural quality to these works, as well as a sense of experimentation as Huber pushes the boundaries of what a drawing can be.
Also included in this exhibition is a painting that is a collaboration between Huber and the artist Orly Cogan. Titled The Gift, it was created by both artists individually working on the panel and then passing it back and forth several times. Huber and Cogan added their respective elements while responding to each others imagery. Huber notes that one must have empathy for the collaborator and consider what they are trying to do as well as yourself. The result is a dynamic hybrid that is very much a Thomas Huber painting, but with the playful figurative imagery of Cogan. Please see Orly Cogans website OrlyCogan.com for more information about her work.
Thomas Hubers work has been exhibited throughout the Hudson Valley, in New York City and New England, as well as in Montreal, Canada. His work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Matteawan gallery and Theo Ganz Studio, Beacon, NY, and a two-person show at the Emma Willard School, Troy, NY. Huber's work has been included in the Mohawk Hudson Regional Invitational, Group Show, Albany Center Gallery, Albany, NY; and the 2015 Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region, Juried by Rachel Uffner, at the University Art Museum, University at Albany, Albany NY, as well as exhibitions at Matteawan Gallery (The UV Portfolio, The Flat File Show); Denise Bibro Fine Art, NYC; BAU, Beacon, NY; the Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY; the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum in Woodstock, NY, in which Huber was awarded Best in Show in 2011; Hudson Opera House, Hudson, NY; and Van Brunt Gallery, Beacon, NY. In 2014 Huber curated the exhibition Salon des Refuses at the Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY. Huber received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He currently lives in Cold Spring, NY.