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."