Following the positive public response to the exhibition Beauty in the Age of Indifference earlier this summer, Dark Matter takes the viewing public on a complete 180 degree turn into the shadows. While Beauty in the Age of Indifference generated its impact from the individual works of art that served as diverse ambassadors for the myriad forms of beauty that exist in the world, the exhibition Dark Matter charts a completely different set of visual experiences.
Jeffrey Thomas Fine Art is pleased to present Dark Matter as a challenging addition to this year’s exhibition calendar of thematic group shows. This exhibition asks the question: what are different qualities and meanings within the concept of “darkness”?
Just in time for the shorter days and longer nights ahead, this dark and foreboding exhibition champions a world assembled out of shadows and contrasts. The diverse group of artists selected for Dark Matter examine the concept of “darkness” as both a source of content and execution.
Dark Matter brings together over a dozen celebrated artists who work this vein of darkness, either in subject matter or in the treatment of the visual experience itself using tones and contrasts. Black is the dominant theme here, where the presence of color is an afterthought. The audience is engaged to locate the source of the dark modalities that are explored in this exhibition: the exhibition becomes an exploration about the ways in which something happens or is experienced “on the dark side.”
These various artists each have gone ahead into those dark places. They have kicked the rotten log to watch what crawled away, they have turned over those muddy stones to find light absent under the earth, they have scratched around the light
to ask us:
· What is in those hidden places, behind those doors, real or imagined?
· What are the darkest hours of the night?
· What is that inky blackness that peppers are consciousness with shadows and forms?
About Jeffrey Thomas Fine Art:
The cooperative nature of Portland is reflected in the innovative model for a new contemporary art gallery located in Slabtown district of NW Portland: borrow the best work from the best artists represented by the best galleries and private collections in the country. An exhibition like Dark Matter brings together over a dozen well-established artists who rarely are seen together under the same roof in the same exhibition. The mission of Jeffrey Thomas Fine Art is to keep significant NW artists in front of the public through focused group shows such as this one, each devoted to an important theme that can be explored by placing different artworks in a “visual conversation” with each other.
This is this gallery’s specific focus: we select and exhibit only the best individual artworks by established regional artists that are available for resale. Simply put, Jeffrey Thomas Fine Art exhibits a range of artwork that people want to live with.