Thomas J Gamble: Adventuring into Basketry

November 19 – December 18

 Reception: November 19 from 6 – 8PM

The scale and intricacy of Thomas J Gamble’s work might suggest a series of pillars reminiscent of ancient linguistic pallets, but beneath the apparent grandiosity of these monumental objects lies a gesture that evades such authority. Printed in vinyl on transparent acrylite panels, the visual effect of shadow and light elevates some supposedly lackluster images and mystifies other more prominent icons.  

The often political and sometimes disquieting imagery in Gamble’s work could imply a solely hostile perspective on the contemporary experience, but the delicate treatment of simple features of traditional life and artistic practice alleviates the presumption of overt messaging in these nuanced compositions. Appreciation of passing moments and an ornate, crafted, and sentimental arrangement of archival objects proposes a more considered approach to the practice of appropriation, with content repurposed from a variety of methods that inform the subtle implications of the imposing and dynamic visual outcome. 

Questions about processes of artistic production and interpretation linger in Gamble’s work as well, as these sizable panels substantiate the memorable with the mundane, documenting momentous occasions within the global public consciousness alongside those items that we might privately forget.

As the recovered title might suggest, Gamble’s work presents to the viewer an adventure into the minutia of visual consumption and the increasingly rapid pace of sensory experience in everyday life where investigations are just as likely to uncover the remnants of an unfounded conspiracy as they are to truly untangle a web of historical lies.  

Perhaps as mystified as the messages that art itself presumes to convey, Gamble’s labyrinthian narratives suggest a story confounded both by the interpretive processes of artmaking and the impenetrable mechanisms of modern-day information exchange. Attempts to decipher the scriptures written on Gamble’s prophetic stelae will uncover a code of law no more coherent than the messaging that governs contemporary life itself, where fact and fiction intertwine into indistinguishable systems of power, human desire, and the ineffectual search for meaning and autonomy in an increasingly monopolistic world order. 

Thomas J Gamble received his MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregan in 2014. This is his first exhibition with Hyacinth Gallery.