Flatfile » Cassie Tompkins »

Location: Chicago, IL

Website: www.cassietompkins.com

“It’s Just Color”, Comfort Station, April 2017

“It’s Just Color” is an exhibition of screen-printed and dyed fabric monoprints of imagined environments capturing the tableau of everyday phenomena. Using a language of geometric and organic shapes and the sensorial experience of color, Tompkins works as an improviser, balancing compositions through intentional and serendipitous marks. Through the demonstration of opposites, she fuses elements found in design and abstract painting. This process employs both industrial and traditional craft techniques that magnify the beautiful and the grotesque. Her work is grounded on philosophical notions found in quotidian life. Moments that blur boundaries between material objects and cognitive experiences, encourage viewers to reconsider their own surroundings through material and designed transformations.

“A Revision of Everyday Life,” The Annex at Spudnik Press, August 11–September 30, 2017

A Revision of Everyday Life, is a series of screen-printed and dyed fabric monoprints that capture the splendor of quotidian life. Through an expression of geometric and abstract shapes, these prints explore the emotional experience of color, tensions between opposites, and the nature of daily life. Tompkins’ technique merges industrial (screen-printing) and traditional (dyeing) craft to amplify the space between the exquisite and the drab. She strives to capture her wonder and appreciation of natural and manmade phenomena through material explorations. The flowing drape of the wall-mounted cotton panels, inclusion of design elements, and the imprecision of the processes speaks to her improvisational philosophy of making—work makes work—each step informs the next, each panel inspires the following, and if there is a plan it’s, on the whole, guesswork. The resultant imagery is bright and graphic, inviting the viewer to take another look at their own surroundings— a revision of everyday