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Groton House

2010
(American, b. 1970)
America, 21st century
ink, fabric dye and colored pencil
Support: Paper
Watermarks:
Sheet: 147.3 x 108 cm (58 x 42 1/2 in.)
Judith and James Saks in memory of Lynn and Dr. Joseph Tomarkin Endowment 2010.225
Location: not on view
This artwork is known to be under copyright.

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Description

More than an art of resemblance, portraiture for Tharp is an opportunity to tap into his own memories and fantasies. His artistic process combines the accidental with the intentional; the figure in Groton House was initiated with a few strokes of mineral ink that bled unpredictably on a damp sheet of paper, creating indistinct violet passages suggestive of pooling liquid visible in the figure’s hair. Tharp then manipulated the image, adding a hyperrealist drawing of a woman shrouded by networks of fine pencil lines and painted in ink with a wide brush. The figure in Groton House seems to emerge as if from behind a scrim, shape-shifting before the viewer and cohering to Tharp’s symbolic world.
Groton House

Groton House

2010

Storm Tharp

(American, b. 1970)
America, 21st century

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