Calla Thompson
June 2011
Calla Thompson spent her residency creating a brand new series of digitally collaged work, using images appropriated from the internet. She describes her artwork as a critical visual examination of contemporary culture. “It is how I investigate material greed and consumption, as well as the ways in which power is exchanged between individuals in society. In my work, I explore good and evil, examining moments and situations in which that dichotomy collapses. I map a place where characters have the potential to be both the ‘goodie’ and the ‘baddie’, at times simultaneously. These concerns, along with a spare aesthetic, and select iconography, have been present from my earliest through my most current artworks.”
Thompson’s long exhibition list includes solo exhibitions at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX; Project 4 Gallery in Washington, DC; the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto, Ontario in Canada, and more. She received the Maryland State Arts Council Award and the Canada Council for the Arts multiple times. In addition to her residency at Light Work, she has participated in residency programs at Gallery Aferro in Newark, NJ; Cooper Union in New York, NY; the Hungarian Multicultural Center in Budapest, Hungary; Yaddo Arts Colony in Saratoga Springs, NY; and the Constance Saltonstall Arts Colony in Ithaca, NY. Originally from Canada, she earned a BFA from the University of Ottawa in Canada and an MFA from Syracuse University. She currently lives in Baltimore, MD.