“Rebecca translates the world and makes it somehow more real and more
beautiful.” Joe Coomer, author
Common Ground, oil paintings by Rebecca Thompson, will hang in the Merkle and Price Galleries May 3-27, with an artist reception on Friday, May 13, 6-8pm.
Thompson was born in Magnet Cove, Arkansas and studied art at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. After a career in garden design, which included a job as gardener at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion, Rebecca started painting full time. She lives in Arkansas and Maine and shows in galleries in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and Maine.
Her paintings come from her travels, from ordinary objects that catch her eye in a new way, and from people caught in a pivotal moment. Her atmospheric strokes of color, her washes of light and her sense of place engage the viewer and invite lingering. Rebecca says that painting is how she shares the poetry of what she sees and what she lives. A bit of mystery in her paintings draws the viewer back time and time again.
Thompson relies on site-made sketches, color notes, and journal entries to supplement photographic records.
Her work has been accepted for several juried shows including the Delta Show of the Arkansas Arts Center and hangs in corporate and private collections across the South and in Maine.