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Thornley
is a graduate of the University of South Carolina where he
studied art and art history along with advertising and
marketing communications. He has consistently garnered top
honors in juried competitions across the Southeast and has
been an active supporter and participant in local and state
arts organizations for over 20 years.
His
work has been featured in exhibitions at York County Museum,
Rock Hill, SC; Queens College, Charlotte, NC; The Upstairs
Gallery, Tryon, NC; The Gibbes Museum, Charleston, SC; Carol
Saunders Gallery, Columbia, SC; Columbia College, Columbia,
SC; and the Lipscomb Gallery at the South Carolina State
Museum, Columbia, SC.
Artist's
Statement
"I
have always been intrigued by the primal urge to create. My
current work continues a longtime fascination with symbols and
mark making. The work interprets the primal need to use marks
and symbols as a means of self-expression or to convey life
experiences.
While studying artistic expression in
primitive cultures, I discovered a fascinating book by Angeles
Arrien entitled “Signs of Life.” The author, a cultural
anthropologist who has spent years researching the origins of
symbols, asserts that there are five basic universal shapes
that exist in all cultures throughout the world - the circle,
the equidistant cross, the spiral, the triangle and the square
– and that people of different cultures ascribe similar
meanings to these shapes.
The common marks and symbols we make to
illuminate, decorate or communicate are in fact part of a
universal system for interpreting our existence. It seems no
matter how diverse we may think we are, we all speak a common
language that is deeply rooted in common ground.
These five universal symbols appear
throughout my latest works."
Press
Release
Exhibition
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