Donald Roy Thompson - The Illusive Dimension of Color

Donald Roy Thompson

The Illusive Dimension of Color September 7 - October 2, 2018

Donald Roy Thompson was born in 1936, in Fowler, California. He received his B.A. degree from Sacramento State University in 1960. He received his M.A also from Sacramento State University in 1962. His most notable art instructor was Wayne Thiebaud. Among his classmates were Fritz Scholder and Merrill Mahaffey, both successful artists in Santa Fe. From 1964-2000 Donald was an art instructor at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California. Before he settled down to teach, Donald traveled and lived in Mexico City, where he was able to observe closely the murals of Diego Rivera. In 2013 Thompson settled in Santa Fe. There he began his current series of work, rekindling an aesthetic from four decades previous.

Like so many color field painters of his generation, Thompson was influenced by Johannes Itten and Josef Albers, as well as by Matisse and Mondrian. During an impoverished time in his early art career he was unable to afford good quality paint so instead he used layers of hand dyed cheesecloth for a large installation at the Cabrillo College Gallery. It helped form the basis of the ideas of transparency that he later produced in his acrylic color field paintings of 1971-75. By 1972 Donald began again to use opaque colors on various sizes of canvas, focusing on the illusion of transparency. By 1974 he began to feel the need for greater physicality. He began to employ the use of stretched canvases of a single color bolted together from large to huge (7.5’ X 10’) now in the Oakland Museum.

Thompson has exhibited solo and group shows both nationally and internationally. These include solo shows at Larry Evans/Willis Gallery, Foster Goldstrom, and Galeria Carl Van der Voort in San Francisco, and Ibiza, Spain. He had solo shows at Frederick Spratt Gallery in San Jose, California, as well as Shasta College Gallery, in Redding California and Cabrillo College in Aptos, California. His group shows include Leila Taghinia-Milani, New York City, Basel Art Fair, Switzerland, Second British International Print Biennale, Yorkshire, England, and "40 Now California Painters," an invitational show that toured the Southeast. Thompson’s Paintings are found in major collections including The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA.; Seattle First National Bank (Seafirst), Seattle, WA; Crocker Museum, Sacramento, CA, Art Museum of Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz, CA. Donald Thompson’s exhibitions have been reviewed well by Thomas Albright of the San Francisco Chronicle, July 28, 1964, Sept. 28, 1967; Henry Hopkins, The Tampa Tribune, April, 16, 1968; Mark Levy, Artweek, December 18, 1982; Claude LeSuer, ArtSpeak, June 23, 1983, New York, N.Y.

SalomĂŠ

17 June 2017 Acrylic on canvas 52 x 32 inches

Wayne

10 November 2015 Acrylic on canvas 19 x 16 inches

Water

18 April 2014 Acrylic on canvas 18 x 19 1/4 inches

North

11 January 2015 Acrylic on canvas 21 1/2 x 20 inches

SFO

15 April 2014 Acrylic on canvas 18 x 21 inches

Chama

29 January 2016 Acrylic on canvas 22 x 19 inches

Katerina

4 November 2015 Acrylic on canvas 21 1/2 x 20 inches

Northwest

22 December 2015 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches

Beans

19 March 2015 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches

Venezia

30 December 2015 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches

Flame

6 November 2015 Acrylic on canvas 27 x 20 inches

Fogster

10 January 2015 Acrylic on canvas 28 x 20 inches

Stairs

5 March 2016 Acrylic on canvas 29 x 18 inches

Nocturne

15 March 2017 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 36 inches

Screamer 29 June 2015

Acrylic on canvas 52 x 36 inches

Sangre de Toro 11 June 2017

Acrylic on canvas 52 x 36 inches

Salal

31 March 2016 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 36 inches

Harvest

8 June 2016 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 36 inches

Tiptoe

11 May 2015 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 36 inches

Cipres 140

2 October 2017 Acrylic on canvas 72 x 42 inches

Fire on Ice 21 July 2017

Acrylic on canvas 69 x 42 inches

Rincon

10 January 2018 Acrylic on canvas 69 x 48 inches

Eureka

15 April 2018 Acrylic on canvas 66 x 60 inches

Splash Variation 3 2018

Acrylic on paper 24 x 18 inches

California Calling 2018

Acrylic on paper 24 x 14 inches

Valencia Variation 2 2018

Acrylic on paper 16 x 12 inches