Randy MacNamara / Aloft RDU

Randy MacNamara

Aloft RDU
August - October

Artist Statement

“It is like being lost in a jungle,” Dr. Mirzakhani said, “and trying to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks — and with some luck you might find a way out.”

MAKING
my mind moves in the cool muck
at the bottom of a dark and tan creek
slipping through
 
mud molds my thoughts into holes
they collapse as I withdraw
pulling up roots to wear as a wig
 
stripped I splash about
in colored light biting the edge
shadows bend my vision  
 
my instincts feel rugged resistance
a stone pried and plucked from suspension
plumes of sediment bloom downstream
 
I chase after a billowing liquid cloud
expanding in pools then riffles
rocks and gone
 

Martha Thorn / Aloft RDU

 

February - April
ARTIST STATEMENT
Line and drawing are the most important elements in my paintings. Texture and design follow, with color being only a vehicle through which I can persuade an audience to look at my work. I am a process painter who paints as intuitively as possible. I begin by setting parameters for myself through canvas dimensions or tools that I allow myself to use and then try to approach the work while breaking all other parameters set for me or by me in the past, particularly as a graphic designer. This is the most critical and honest stage. Then I start to “clean up,” hopefully reducing the chaos in a painting by just one degree so that it becomes a successful, cohesive painting bordering on the brink of disaster. The dichotomies of chaos and peace, dirty and clean, and ugliness and beauty are recurrent themes in my work. Though these are not new themes in art, my hope is to execute and present them in a fresh, authentic way.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Martha Thorn is an artist based in Raleigh, NC. She got her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Graphic Design from Western Carolina University. She began painting in 2007, marrying her background in design with a process driven approach to painting. Her work has been exhibited at GreenHill, The Carrack Modern and other venues throughout the Southeast.