Their work, which centres on painting, has also extended to embrace installation and sculpture. Their cryptic paintings are enigmas which explore a visual dialogue between figurative language and territory by incorporating painting, drawing, collage and recuperated readymade objects. Blurring the frontiers between abstraction and figuration, their paintings include direct, simple, sometimes child-like signs and are based on a balance and a solid knowledge of art history (from rock paintings to abstract expressionism).
Torey Thornton’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Modern Art (London) and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY), and in group shows including the 2017 Whitney Biennial (NY), the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), the Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama) and Studio Harlem (NY).
* Torey Thornton prefers to be referred to using non-binary pronouns
Dear Clifford Rocket, Don’t You Want A Home, 2016 Acrylic paint and spray paint on wood panel , 90 x 105 in. / 228,6 x 266,7 cm Courtesy the artist, Modern Art, London & the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo.
First, After I saw Elvis Look At Me And Imagined Him Looking To Andy, 2014–15, Aluminum enamel paint, oil, wood, spray paint and collage on wood panel, 70.9 × 86.7 in. / 180 x 220 cm Courtesy the artist and Modern Art, London.
Unused Passport Portraits of My Adopted Children Chromakey and Mirrors, 2019 Acrylic paint, aluminum enamel paint and galvanized steel mending plates on wood panel, 79.2 x 64.2 in. / 201 x 163 cm Courtesy the artist and Modern Art, London.
Whole Glory, 2014 -2019 Glue, cardboard, wood panel , 43.8 x 54.3x 2.3 in. / 111 x 139 x 6.5 cm Courtesy the artist & Modern Art, London