Public Reception: Sunday, February 17, 2 - 4pm
Artist Talk: 2 PM, Sunday, March 30, 2008
Too Busy For Love is a mini-retrospective focused on the past decade of work by Angels Gate Cultural Center Studio Artist Matthew Thomas. This exhibition spans both of the Center's galleries, with the main gallery, Gallery A, displaying paintings and a new, site specific installation, and the Downstairs Gallery devoted to his works on paper and studies. This format allows the viewer to not only experience the completed works of the artist, but the process of creation that makes those works possible.
It is in this past decade that Thomas' work has truly come into its own. Leaving behind a lucrative career showing in commercial galleries to concentrate on both his Buddhist practice and his painting, Thomas' vision has fully matured. With this exhibition Thomas re-emerges, displaying the fruits of long labors, many which have never been seen by the public.
Matthew Thomas is a master of geometric abstraction; his works are expressive and meditative experiments in color and form. Working primarily in encaustic, using a dynamic and brilliant range of colors, Thomas' works vibrate with energy and feeling. A synthesizer, Thomas brings together themes from science, mathematics and religion in his works, deceptively simple in design, but which, upon serious inspection, reveal a deep interest in the mystery of the systems that govern both our physical and spiritual universes.
About the Artist
Matthew Thomas was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1943. Moving to Los Angeles at age 9, just in time to experience the city's postwar economic boom and expansion, Matthew benefited from exposure to the ethnic and cultural melting pot of Southern California. At an early age his pathway through life was determined for him; in 1967, he both graduated from the Chouinard School of Fine Arts (today known as the California Institute of the Arts) and engaged in the early experience of his Buddhist practice.
Since that time, Thomas has endeavored to explore the spiritual realm, as well as the artistic realm. His life has been guided by a passion to expand his knowledge and to share that knowledge with others. For the past three decades, Thomas has worked as an artist and educator, all the while continuing his spiritual practices as a lay Buddhist monk. He has traveled and exhibited extensively throughout the Pacific Rim, exchanging ideas and knowledge with a growing group of peers and admirers.