Eric G. Thompson’s ‘The Boundless Moment‘
opens Friday, August 15 from 5-7 pm
and closes August 28.
Eric and Hilary Thompson’s daughters dash around Matthews Gallery, exploring their father’s new solo exhibition ‘The Boundless Moment.’ They’ve just finished a long car ride from Salt Lake City but they’re bursting with energy.
Over the past year the children have grown alongside these canvases and panels, watching as thousands of brushstrokes transformed into rolling landscapes and rosy skin. Now these familiar images have magically appeared in our lofty, brightly lit space, sparking the girls’ curiosity. They stop before each work, craning their necks to get a good look.
The girls’ vivacity matches Hilary’s temperament. She keeps an eye on them as she chats and laughs with us. Eric is a quieter presence. He strolls around the gallery, analyzing the arrangement of the work and reading the legendary poems we paired with them. Eric likes to think of his paintings as ‘visual haikus,’ which inspired us to select writings by Frost, Dickinson, Lowell and others to display during the show.
‘The Boundless Moment’ is something of a family act. Hilary was Eric’s model for the painting ‘Morning Cup,’ and wrote an accompanying poem that will debut at the opening reception. ‘The Chiseled Mother’ is a passionate meditation on parenthood and aging. As Eric cradles one of his daughters in his arms, you can tell that he’s just as inspired by the radiant spirit of his children.
Read Hilary’s poem below, and make sure to attend Eric’s artist reception on Friday, August 15 from 5-7 pm.
Eric G. Thompson, Morning Cup, Oil on Panel
From Hilary Thompson:
The Chiseled Mother
I honor this body
This matryoshka
The delicate lines of my eyes
Like tissue paper
Crinkled from sun beams
Washboards slow the momentum
of tears
These ears, these conches
That entombed the beeping screaming alarms
Echoing endlessly on exhausted drives home
Mercifully quieting with age
Eric G. Thompson, Waiting for a Song, Oil on Panel
This mouth
Which broadcasts comforts, screeches, praise
Fractures the tightrope of vexation
These beautiful, perfect arms
That embraced defeat
Carried a child to the surgeon’s knife
Willing arms
That waved, furrowed, aching
Sturdy farewells
This heart that beats out
The anthem of the womb
I Am
I Am
I Am
Eric G. Thompson, Coffee Shop Girl, Oil on Panel
A womb
That is the definition of Creation
Bringing forth what does not exist
Into existence
Torn out of me
With upheaval and sanguine waves of nurture
These knees that caught me
When my frame buckled
Unable to support my grief
These marks, stretched
Yawning tiger stripes
Where my body gave room
Shimmer as silver reminders of a past shape
Eric G. Thompson, Evening, Oil on Panel
These feet
Planted. Supporting.
Rooted even in motion, substantial
Pacing halls, hospital rooms
Threshing carpets bare-threaded
I am the red rock slot canyon
Worn smooth, fissured, curved
Sculpted
By this flawed life
This body is a shrine
A Holy place, a pilgrimage
A masterpiece painted stroke by stroke
By the breathtakingly exquisite nourishment
Of not getting what I want.
Breathe that in,
Chiseled edifice of the Mother,
Slather it like salve into your stripes,
You silver tiger.
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