From The Collection: Marina Thompson

Marina Thompson, Cross Purposes, 20” x 16”, encaustic and digital print, 2016. Permanent collection of R&F Handmade Paints.

Artist Marina Thompson finds stimulation in “the pulse of color and the play of light and texture.” She describes her paintings as an effort to “generate depth, energy, and movement with illusions of volume, space, light, and time.” Marina might just have one of the most amusing pictures on the “About” tab of her website we’ve seen and we are thrilled to have her work Cross Purposes as part of the permanent collection at R&F.

Marina studied Art Education and weaving at Antioch College, Illustration at the Art Institute of Boston, and Industrial Design at Rhode Island School of Design. She is a member of the Graphic Artists Guild, Boston Printmakers, and New England Wax. Her bold use of color and form have their roots in her early career spent designing and weaving rag rugs that sold in prominent stores across the country. After years of weaving, she moved into the field of illustration where she created editorial illustration for magazines, book publishing, packaging, logo design, tiny pop-up books, and museum murals. From there, it was a short leap to abstraction.

Marina Thompson, Suspended, 16” x 16”, pigmented inks, beeswax, Pigment Stick, and gouache on hot press cotton rag, 2020.

Marina’s paintings record what she articulates as her “abstracted, layered and introspective experience of encounters with people, books, media, conversations with myself, and the world.” She believes that good communication requires “kinetic creativity, many layers of light, texture, balance, nuance, and surprise” and that “pattern and repetition, rhythm and interruption make up our lives.” For Marina, geometry provides a connecting point between the interior and exterior, while creating a structure that is at once ancient and contemporary.

Drawing upon substrates as varied as cotton rag papers, wood, aluminum, and fabric, Marina often prints the base layer, saturates it with beeswax, then paints with a variety of mediums including encaustic, Pigment Sticks, cold wax, ink, watercolors, gouache, Flashe, and Cuni paint. Sometimes she sands or distresses her work between layers or layers lightweight papers to build color transparencies with added depth. Marina’s years as an illustrator forged habits that still inform her process. She often sketches with a pencil or paints on paper, then moves to her computer to draw with a stylus.

Marina Thompson, Intercession, 16"x 20”, pigmented inks, beeswax, and Pigment Stick on hot press cotton rag, 2018.

We reached out to Marina to find out how the past year has impacted her art making practice.

“2020 has been very challenging - the uncertainty of everything, the constant misinformation. It’s been difficult for me to access the underlying humor that holds my work together. Fortunately, I had a successful exhibit that ended just as the lockdown began last February. The winter paintings I made after that show are more introspective, spatially complicated, and slow. I spent more time around the house fixing broken things, repairing crumbling walls, taking care of neighbors. Summer was a blur of walking, swimming, and yard work.

My desire to paint was rescued this fall by a great cold wax workshop with artist Debra Claffey. A handful of us met through Zoom in our studios for three hours every Wednesday. It was both social and instructive. I am learning to use cold wax in new ways, making a big mess, and striving to be more playful in a dark world.

Marina Thompson, Deflecting, 16” x 20”, pigmented inks, beeswax, and Pigment Stick on hot press cotton rag, 2018.

I continue to work primarily on paper. I love the translucency when it is saturated with beeswax. Often I work with a printed underpainting, then a slow build of tranlucent oil colors from R&F Pigment Sticks mixed with Gamblin Galkyd. I use Flashe and opaque pigments for opacity and cold wax for texture. I still rebel against painting in series and, as always, have personal expectations of more collage in the near future.

I am currently working on a group of digital prints for the the Hematology and Oncology Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital, having previously created prints for the Intensive Care Unit. I also have paintings in a group show at Gallery Twist in Lexington, Massachusetts (where my exhibit last February took place). Three upcoming group shows in 2021 with New England Wax keep me moving and reaching. Momentum is building.”

You can see more of Marina’s work at marinathompson.com. To follow New England Wax on Instagram click here.