Joan Thorne

SIDESHOW is presenting a solo exhibition of new paintings by Joan Thorne, who first achieved significant critical acclaim nearly thirty years ago. The exhibition is accompanied by a 32-page catalogue.

An essay by art historian, Peter Hastings Falk, "The Ghost Picked Me: The Life and Art of Joan Thorne," bears a title taken from a quote by Bob Dylan, one of Thorne's peers. Falk points out that Thorne emerged from the shadows of the Abstract Expressionists, determined to make her own mark on painting. In 1972, her painting was included in the Whitney Museum's last Annual Exhibition (thereafter it became the Biennial Exhibition). The next year,Thorne was given a rare solo show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

In 1979, she was included in Barbara Rose's seminal exhibition, "American Painting: The Eighties," at the Grey Gallery at New York University. Her painting has been included in two Whitney Museum Biennial Exhibitions. Thorne has had three Retrospective Museum Exhibitions in the Caribbean at: Museo de Casa de Bastidas, Dom. Rep., Museo de La Plaza de la Cultura, Dom. Rep and Museo De Las Americas, Puerto Rico. In 1987 the American Academy awarded Thorne the Prix de Rome in Visual Arts.

The...

JOAN THORNE
New York, New York
Website: www.joanthorne.com
email: joanpainting@yahoo.com

EDUCATION
Hunter College, New York, M.A.
New York University, New York, B.S.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009 Up Coming Show Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, NY
2005 Chris Winfield Gallery, Carmel, California
2001 Andre Zarre Gallery, New York
2000 Retrospective: Museo de Las Americas, San Juan,
Puerto Rico
1998 A Retrospective: Museo Voluntariado De Las Casas
Reales, Casa de Bastidas, Santo Domingo, Dom., Rep.
A Retrospective: Museo Patronato Plaza de la Cultura
Santiago Apostol, Santiago, Dom., Rep.
1996 Ramapo College, New Jersey
1990 Graham Modern , New York
1989 Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1988 Graham Modern
1986 Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles
William Halsey Gallery, Simon Center for the Arts,
College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
1985 Graham Modern
1983 Lincoln Center Gallery, Lincoln Center, New York
Dart Gallery, Chicago
Gloria Luria Gallery, Bay Harbor Island, FL
1982 Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Willard Gallery, New York
1980 Willard Gallery, New York
Dart Gallery, Chicago
1979 The Clocktower: Institute for Art and Ur...

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York: Richard Timperio, founder of the Sideshow Gallery in Williamsburg has announced a solo exhibition of new paintings by Joan Thorne. The show will run from October 12th to November 10th, with an opening night party on Saturday October 12th from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 32-page catalogue with an essay by art critic Stephen Westfall, who points out that four decades ago Thorne emerged as a kind of “New Image abstractionist” before developing a new dialogue with surrealism and biomorphism. “Thorne’s sensitivity and exuberance with color renders the optical energy of her compositions delicious, or erotic, rather than jarring,” says Westfall.
At her last exhibition at Sideshow three years ago, New York Times critic Ken Johnson agreed, calling her paintings “Optically captivating, the work conveys a state of visceral and cosmic ecstasy.” And Art in America critic Douglas Manson wrote of colors that “seem to produce their own light,” resulting in a strong appeal of “depth without illusionism.” Now, in the current series of new paintings, Westfall observes that Thorne’s colors remain as exuberant as ever while pointing out that she “is posing a renewed, vital, imaginative, phe...