Spook Rock Road (Kasino-Kut)

The painter and sculptor Blair Thurman has built up a unique body of work that can be situated at the crossroads of his various sources of inspiration, mainly geometric abstraction from the 1950s and 60s, Pop Art and Americana. He often takes forms and motifs selected from amongst these categories as the starting point for paintings and environments that transform them into poetic, abstract artworks.

In “Spook Rock Road (Kasino-Kut)”, several large-scale pictorial installations in the exhibition space serve as a backdrop for an ensemble of recent paintings and sculptures. The allusion to a casino in the exhibition title points to Thurman’s method that always includes an element of chance. His art is closely connected with the aesthetic value of the found object - one of the foundations of modern art - however shapes, structures and motifs are also transposed into his works. These found shapes include slot car tracks, chair frames and printed patterns and yet his art is about much more than found objects: cars and gambling are a gateway to painting, the shortcuts he takes to determine a form.

• Blair Thurman