CAPPY THOMPSON
For me, as a narrative painter, the issue has always been content. The issue wasn’t glass, the material that I chose some 37 years ago. Nor was it the painting technique — grisaille or gray-tonal painting — that I taught myself to use. My work — which spans several decades and a variety of scales from the intimate to the monumental — has always been driven by content.
Early in my career I was drawn to the images, symbols and painting of the medieval period — but not just the Christian tradition of Western Europe. I loved the content of Hindu, Pagan, Judaic, Buddhist and Islamic painting as well.
These were images created before the invention of “art” as we know it — before painters controlled the content of their work. These were works decreed by religious and political authorities to depict the magnificence and beauty of the natural and divine order.
What I loved was the naive naturalism and devout simplicity of that period—like the folk art of any period.
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Cappy Thompson
