Meticulous Sanctum
An Exhibit by Sue Fox & Rylan Thompson
November 1 — December 11, 2023
ARTIST RECEPTION
Saturday, December 9 at 5:30 PM
ABOUT METICULOUS SANCTUM
Husband and wife duo, Sue Fox and Rylan Thompson, explore the sacred through a process focused on detail. Both find peace while making art in their small studio. It is their meticulous sanctum.
Sue Fox’s work is abstract with pigment rich color studies made from thousands of small paper magazine samples adhered in a puzzle fashion to cradled wood boards. This technique creates a consistent and flat matte color effusion that dissipates paper edges, tricking the eye into optical illusion like effects. Focusing on the “present,” Sue chooses each remnant slowly and one at a time. This process is her daily reminder that there is beauty in this world, amongst all this everyday ugly. Self reflection, momentary living, and color appreciation are her getaway from our current chronic depressive geo-political, pandemic world state. It is her intention to give her viewers a breath of fresh air and temporary escape from what has become our often-so-scary everyday.
Rylan Thompson sees his function as an artist as being a filter of sorts—making sense of the world through drawing. Anything can be the seed of an idea: cities at night, embroidery patterns, old school cartoons, sticky residue left after a sign was removed, even a simple shape. Images and symbols co-mingle with the organic and the otherworldly. Architecture melts into the unreal. The drawing can feel both familiar and wildly alien at the same time. Ending somewhere new and unexpected is far more important than conveying any concrete message or idea. His recent series of work is titled Shrine Mutations. They are designed to be impossible object shrines that exist more in a dream state than in reality. Themes and imagery develop naturally as he draws. They are shrines to nothing but themselves.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Sue Fox is a mixed media artist from Chicago living in Chattanooga, TN. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003, and has shown extensively throughout the United States. Her work focuses on meditation through color exploration. She has been published in Numbers Inc, Studio Art Magazine, and has shown multiple times with Kai Lin Gallery in Atlanta, GA, and Gallery Studio Oh in Chicago, IL. Recently, she received 1st place in the “Eugene Brown Memorial Show” (an annual art show for Miami Tribal Members) at the Myaamia Heritage Center in Miami, OK. In addition, Sue is a participant in Chattanooga Airport’s inaugural art gallery, which is a three person show at Wavelength Gallery & Channel to Channel in Chattanooga. She has also exhibited in Art Fields in Lake City, SC, and completed a residency at Hambidge this February.
Rylan Thompson is a professional artist living and working in Chattanooga, TN. Rylan's work involves ink drawing—often mixed with collage or color media—resulting in complex arrangements of imagery that resemble fantastical structures or machines. His work has been featured in Numbers Inc., Lumpen Magazine's recent comic books, and Quarantine Times. Recently, his work has been shown at the Chattanooga Airport, the MCA Chicago, and a duo show with Heath Montgomery at Wavelength Space in Chattanooga.