February 7, 2007, Philadelphia, PA – An exhibition of recent paintings by Thomas Chimes will be on view at Locks Gallery from March 2 to April 14, 2007. There will be an opening reception for the exhibition on Friday, March 2, 2007 from 5:30 to 7:30pm. A full-color illustrated catalogue of the exhibition will be available. Gallery admission is free and open to the public.
The exhibition coincides with Thomas Chimes: Adventures in ‘Pataphysics, a major retrospective of the artist’s work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Locks Gallery exhibition brings together approximately fifty works by Chimes, none more than six inches square. Many of the works are grouped in combinations of up to ten small works. Installed in sequence, the artist compares them to visual poems. Much of the cartoon-like imagery of the paintings is inspired by the drawings of Alfred Jarry, who has been a life-long source of inspiration for the artist. These ethereal and mysterious works also contain references to entropy, alchemy, and astronomy.
Chimes, who is eighty-five years old, is still at work on this series of paintings, which Michael Taylor, curator of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s retrospective, considers to be “the summation of his themes and obsessions.”
