SoiL Thornton

SoiL Thornton’s practice blurs the line between painting and sculpture, exploring the extremities of narration and abstraction. They reject the canvas, instead creating compositions out of objects and found materials such as wood, slatted panels and steel plates. In selecting materials, they look for something that has meaning when you approach it, which they then try to complicate. While shifting the familiar, Thornton keeps certain elements recognizable enough that you think you know what you’re looking at. The works refuse easy answers, with meaning often encrypted and ambiguous. The titles, loaded with language twists, puns and homophones, give some clues as to how and why they were conceived, often alluding to broad ideas of gender, class, and identity.