Spotlight Artist

Elise Thompson

South
Artist profile photo
Featured in New American Paintings

Artist Statement

My objects consist of dichotomies. Translucent textiles over wooden frames offer a delicate surface with an assertive support. Paint application is nuanced in some areas and clumsy in others, shifting back and forth between ethereal stains, loud color, and material textures. Shapes shift between the organic and the geometric, the nonrepresentational and the slightly familiar. Similar gestures take form in three-dimensional works that lean against walls or stand lightly on their own. Plywood, covered or left bare, is cut to evoke the abstract paintings, but also furniture and figures. There are moments that call on something specific while avoiding it at the same time, revealing hidden, partial secrets in crevices and behind layers when the viewer explores what is concealed.

Artist's Additional works

Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections

Featured artwork
Featured artwork

Discover more artists from the South

THE MAGAZINE

Explore our magazine to discover exceptional artists

Open magazine with text, modern illustrations, and a list of artists on a pink background.
View issues

Call for Artists

Submit your work for consideration

New American Paintings is a juried exhibition-in-print and digital, presenting the work of 40 emerging artists in each issue.

View competitions

Your gateway to new art

Discover tomorrow's art stars, today

Two books on a wooden table with a modern decorative sculpture in the background.

PRINT + EARLY ACCESS DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION

$179/YEAR

DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION

$99/YEAR OR $10/MONTH

Each issue of New American Paintings features forty artists selected through our juried competitions—presented in a beautifully curated, full-color publication. Subscribers receive six issues per year, plus exclusive online access to current and past editions. Are you a collector? Consider our premium subscription and receive our museum-quality printed publication + access to each new digital issue two weeks before its general release.