A Semblance of Place: Alex R.M. Thompson | Main Gallery Exhibition

A Semblance of Place presents a vivid representation of the city, rendered primarily in copperplate etching. The works use urban interiors and exteriors to describe a landscape frozen in some state of tumultuous change; towers totter skywards, harvesting components of their own foundations to drive their upward (and ultimately perilous) growth, while vast halls hold isolated monuments to deeply flawed power structures. The spaces, largely bereft of occupants, invite the viewer to explore the darkly Romantic cityscapes, winding between crumbling brick walls, through yawning arches, and into incomplete apartment blocks. Within these architectural remnants, questions of climate, political upheaval, and resource consumption linger in the challenging tension between beauty and destruction.

We are thrilled to present Edmonton-based print artist, Alex R.M. Thompson's first solo exhibition with Abbozzo Gallery, A Semblance of Place. Predominantly working through copperplate etchings, Thompson explores the permanence of change in urban landscapes. Immortalizing the ephemeral into his images, Thompson collapses and collages the histories, objects, and subjects of disparate places into the singular landscape of his prints.

Obliterating conceptions of time and scale, we see collated modern construction materials and tools anachronistic to the Euro-centric classical architecture and monuments-- simultaneously blown up in size and miniaturized as seen in San Pietro, Overshadowed or Eternity is a Convincing Myth.

Often concerned with spaces and the structures within them being in a state of perpetual change, Thompson uses the motif of the construction site: the artworks occupying the space between old and new, and new and old, between disorder and order, ultimately revealing the organized chaos of process. We see scaffolding construction wrap and machinery sitting amongst completed apartment towers and city institutions jutting out at odd angles, some reflected, or mirrored, and for us, becoming entirely unique and unreal structures fabricated from the mundane industrial infrastructure such as in So Much More to Take (III) or Divide.

Following in the tradition of other great Abbozzo Gallery plate etching artists such as Dan Steeves and David Blackwood, Alex R.M. Thompson brings an incredible level of technical ability, and high level of multi-texturality to his work, along with a highly contemporary and unique approach to image building, both surreal and grounded in a universal familiarity.

                                                                                                                                                                           - Blake Zigrossi, Associate Director