Thurston Belmer

Biography:

E. Thurston Belmer was born in Boston Massachusetts. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree fromWashington University in Saint Louis, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts. Belmer’s work has been exhibited nationally including: New York, Chicago, Missouri, New Jersey, Kentucky, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia. His work has been widely published in magazines and reviews including: Artibune, Direct Art Magazine, Beautiful Savage Magazine, Hesa Inprint Magazine published in Helsinki Finland, International Painting Annual 2 and INPA 3, Asbury Park Press and The Times Union.

Belmer was recently a visiting artist and lecturer at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, along side an exhibit that the University held of his work. Selected exhibitions include: “Rebirth”, Brooklyn, NY, “Human” at the Illinois Institute of Art, Gallery 180, Chicago, IL, “Inland Symposium: A survey of contemporary Midwestern Art” St louis, Mo, and 2011 Boston Printmakers Biennial, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA, which was Juried by Jim Dine. E. Thurston Belmer currently lives and works in New York City.

Artist Statement:

The figures in my work emerge within a living space. While at first the interiors appear distinguishable, the space breaks and folds into a mental atmosphere that invades the psyche. Each scratch on the canvas becomes a wound on the surface of the mind as well as on the distance between figures and the space in which they inhabit. The figures are an emotive access point of interaction. Their presence, handling and demeanor become anchors within the situation presented. My large-scale paintings are related to the body of the observer by encouraging navigation to obtain some form of comprehension. The individual compiles a personal sense of the image by occupying various proximities to the object, which become whole through fragmented navigation. In a sense the paintings become an event in which the viewer’s own interaction sustains the image, feeling the sting of the event without the circumstance.

My work then functions in the way that the mind creates and recalls memories by combining a series of allusive elements on a singular picture plane to imply a narrative. These fragments are emphasized through the use of dramatic lighting, which severs the image, offering a situation without reliable conclusion. Visual reliability and resolve rest only on intimate response. The paintings mimic that which we endure; they are the hardships and unavoidable trials that inform who we become. The tactility of the paint simulates the formation of scar tissue through its obsessive layering and glazing and the infliction of paint on the surface conveys the alteration of self through the healing process. Although scar tissue desensitizes sensation in the body, the representation of paint as scar tissue heightens the viewer’s response to sensation.

The figures become trapped within their construction while simultaneously they enter the audience’s personal space. It is for this reason that the images beckon for a resolution that can never be found; a struggle for power and understanding is therefore realized. My work functions much like daily interactions between intimate bodies. These experiences are abstract and intangible, representing a psychological reality rather than a physical reality. I choose to challenge the signifiers inherent in representation by recognizing the illusion of solidarity in our experience of what it means to be alive.