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Aspen Art Museum opens Hayley Tompkins exhibition

Aspen Art Museum presents Hayley Tompkins an exhibition on view July 26–September 22, 2013.

Hayley Tompkins, ‘Digital Light Pool (Orange)’, 2013. Acrylic on plastic trays, stock photographs, wooden boxes, glass, plastic bottles, watercolour. Installation view ‘Scotland + Venice 2013: Sworn / Campbell / Tompkins’. Commissioned by The Common Guild for Scotland + Venice 2013. Courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow. Photograph by Ruth Clark. Commissioned by The Common Guild for Scotland + Venice 2013.
Hayley Tompkins, ‘Digital Light Pool (Orange)’, 2013. Acrylic on plastic trays, stock photographs, wooden boxes, glass, plastic bottles, watercolour. Installation view ‘Scotland + Venice 2013: Sworn / Campbell / Tompkins’. Commissioned by The Common Guild for Scotland + Venice 2013. Courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow. Photograph by Ruth Clark. Commissioned by The Common Guild for Scotland + Venice 2013.

In her paintings and painted objects, Hayley Tompkins emphasizes the energy found in small things and economical gestures. From sticks and scraps of wood to spoons and mobile phone casings, her choice of support insistently draws attention to the boundary between painting and reality. Organized in suggestive and deceptively informal arrangements, Tompkins’s minimal, lo-fi objects highlight the acts of looking, touching, and experiencing space. In so doing, Tompkins prompts us to slow down and attend to our surroundings in a concentrated way that is decidedly at odds with the pace of contemporary life. Her exhibition at the AAM will be her first solo presentation in a North American institution.

Hayley Tompkins is organized by the AAM and funded in part by the AAM National Council with major underwriting support from Susan and Larry Marx. Publication underwritten by Mary and Harold Zlot. General exhibition support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Exhibition lectures are presented as part of the Questrom Lecture Series and educational outreach programming is made possible by the Questrom Education Fund.

Hayley Tompkins (born 1971, Leighton Buzzard, UK) lives and works in Glasgow. Recent solo exhibitions include Studio Voltaire, London; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; Autobuilding, Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh; Re, The Drawing Room, London; and Transfer (with Sue Tompkins) at Spike Island, Bristol, among others. Her work was featured in the 2012 São Paolo Biennial, and has been included in group exhibitions at such venues as Tate Britain; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; and the Hessel Museum at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Tompkins is one of three artists chosen to represent Scotland at the 2013 Venice Biennale. aspenartmuseum.org