Join us this Sunday, June 1st from 1-4PM for Brunch with the artist, Thomas Broadbent.
Thomas Broadbent
Adaptation
May 2nd-June 1st, 2014
Closing Brunch: Sunday, June 1st, 1-4PMFri–Sun 1-6 & by appointment
Front Room Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Thomas Broadbent. In this new series of works the artist explores the idea of situational adaption of nature, with curious results. Broadbent often pairs commonly known birds with typical household objects, creating uncanny scenarios that seem familiar, but point to larger implications. Broabent's philosophical compositions often depict birds amongst mundane trappings of everyday humanity. These paintings, in a seemingly well-structured world of man-made artifice, reference the underlying impulses of nature.Broadbent's large-scale watercolors have an absurdity to them that borders on the surreal, they are plausible scenarios, but the unlikely combination of elements, objects, and animals are otherworldly and common at the same time. Broadbent incorporates the style of James Audubon, representing birds and natural elements as life-size, with impeccable attention to detail.
Broadbent often juxtaposes these birds with objects in his stark picture plane that should be ten times bigger. Scale itself seems contorted in these new works; the viewer is suspended in a recalibration of realism, where a chickadee may seem gigantic in comparison to the ladder where it is perched, or the ladder itself appears miniaturized
Thomas Broadbent defines adaptation as a change in a plant or animal that makes it better able to live in a particular place or situation. His fascination with the way in which nature is endlessly able to adjust to a rapidly changing world, helps to inform his choice of elements in his compositions. His specifically limits his aviary subjects to birds that are reverenced in the famous: "Birds of America.” In this context Broadbent has selected volumes specific to his personal travels and objects relative to domesticity and construction in the United States. Environmental adaptation is personal as it is universal in the natural world; the quality of nature to adapt allows for preservation. The visualization of this adaptation can be surprising as it is fantastical and disquieting.
Broadbent has shown extensively throughout the U.S. as well as internationally. Broadbent’s numerous solo exhibitions include the Visual Art’s Center of New Jersey, Voorkhamer Gallery (Lier, Belgium), Croxhapox Gallery (Gent, Belgium) Inspace gallery (Beijing, China) and the Newark Arts Council. Broadbent’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Jersey Star-Ledger, NY Arts, The Brooklyn Rail and numerous other publications.
