Hayley Tompkins

Born:

1971

Residence:

Glasgow, United Kingdom

Nationality:

British

Trust:

APT London

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PRESS & PUBLICATIONS

Tenderpixel, London, is currently exhibiting the works that are part of the 'Portrait (for a Screenplay) of Beth Harmon,' a project by Tamsin Clark and Sean Edwards.
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Jupiter Artland and Inverleith House make wonderful backdrops for exciting work, while the late Jo Spence’s art is as vital as ever.
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Recently nominated for the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year award, Jupiter is open to the public half the year.
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The Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) one of the high points of the Summer art season, opens tomorrow presenting work by 250 artists, in more than 40 exhib
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A group show with Michael Assiff, Gina Beavers, Nicolas Deshayes, Travess Smalley, Philipp Timischl and Hayley Tompkins.
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Hayley Tompkins’ practice encompasses the production of works and installations in which ordinary objects and familiar materials are treated with an intense chromatic and pictorial research.
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The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College here may or may not have intended a pair of summer exhibitions on view
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Tate Britain's new show proves there's more to watercolours than pallid sunsets, but where are the happy amateurs?
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Glasgow-based artist Hayley Tompkins (b. 1971) inventively deploys the materials—including paint, stock photographs, wooden chairs and found objects—
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Tate Britain's new show proves there's more to watercolours than pallid sunsets, but where are the happy amateurs?
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At this year’s Venice Biennale once again Scotland + Venice partnership will be present and their 2013 presentation is curated and organised by
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The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College here may or may not have intended a pair of summer exhibitions on view
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A sale of Scottish work and a loan of English art from our own galleries make an impression on London
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Hello, my name is Alison Smith and I am the lead curator of Tate Britain’s forthcoming exhibition ‘Watercolour’ at Tate Britain which opens on 16th February
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With everything from Peruvian pursuits to painterly piracy, the Scottish artists at the Venice Biennale are making their mark in this year’s eclectic cornucopia of contemporary art.
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Planning a trip this summer? Choose your dates carefully - there are more than a few reasons to stick close to home instead. Denver reaches for new heights this season with a brilliant bill of theater, opera, dance, classical music and art.
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Watercolour has a life of its own. You make your mark on the page and very soon it's not entirely yours. The paint sinks into the surface, seeping,
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Every country in the Biennale puts on an exhibition by one or a group of artists, which, whether the artists involved fully embrace it or not, says
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Born in 1971 in Leighton Buzzard, Scotland, Hayley Tompkins lives and works in Glasgow. Tompkins is known for her small-scale unframed watercolours that subtlety play off of Modernist references, such as Malevich and Sonia Delaunay. The materiality of her painting indexes the physical presence of the artist, while evolving a unique personal language. Her unspectacular gestures require time and effort from the viewer, constantly defying interpretation. Tompkins often installs her works in relations to a given space, combining them with wall paintings or sculptural elements. She says: “The paintings feel aged to me already, like I am making ready-made objects and inserting them into history straight away.”

Recent solo exhibitions include Painting plays a key role in the work of Hayley Tompkins, but she is not a painter in the traditional sense. She has made many colourful abstract works using watercolour on paper. But she has also painted on objects including hammers, bottles, knives, chairs, twigs and mobile phones. She has made films, and frequently used photographs in her work, including images of SIM cards, watches, batteries, currency and computer keyboards. Her installations have sometimes included readymade elements, from house plants to fragments of clothing. Tompkins’s individual pieces are usually small in scale and ask us to pay careful, intimate attention to them. But her installations also subtly emphasise how each piece relates to the others and to the space of the gallery.

In works such as Tele and Data V (2009), Tompkins shows us an object twice over – we see both a real phone and a painting that sits directly upon it, almost like a skin. A mobile phone is, of course, an object that most people are very used to holding and having near them. It stores and releases energy and it can measure and organise time. Tompkins’s works often suggest an extension of the self through images or objects. They invite us to think about the possibilities and limitations of communication, about our experiences of time, and about the potential energy in things.

The objects used in Tompkins’s art are not her subject matter in themselves. Rather, she uses this ‘object matter’ to address subjective perception and emotions.

For GENERATION, The Common Guild presents works Tompkins made for Scotland + Venice 2013 at the 55th Venice Biennale, which are shown in Scotland for the first time here. The installation consists of both painted and printed images. There are photographs, sourced from a commercial supplier of ‘stock’ images, which depict yachts, ocean views, fruit, stones, and various forms of technology. There are also abstract paintings made using brightly coloured acrylic paints in shallow plastic boxes, and watercolours in plastic drinks bottles. These elements are installed in groupings on the floor of the gallery, as with Digital Light Pool (Orange) (2013). These pieces mark a recent shift in Tompkins’s work to an interest in views or landscapes. Here, looking out, like looking within, is a form of subjective seeing.

Biography

Hayley Tompkins (born 1971 in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire) completed a BA in Painting and an MFA at The Glasgow School of Art. Her solo exhibitions include: Space Kitchen, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2014); Hayley Tompkins, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado (2013); Currents, Studio Voltaire, London (2011); A Piece of Eight, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2011); Optical Research, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2009); Autobuilding, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2009); and Transfer (with Sue Tompkins), Spike Island, Bristol (2007). Group exhibitions include Scotland + Venice 2013, Palazzo Pisani, Venice Biennale (2013) and the 30th São Paolo Biennale (2012), “Autobuilding” at Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2009), “Optical Research” at Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2009), “Salute to the Dataday, The Front Room” at Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (with Sue Tompkins) (2009) and “Re” at The Drawing Room / Tannery Arts, London (2008). Her work has also been shown as part of “At Home/Not at Home” at Bard College, New York (2010), “Ashes to Ashes” at AMP, Athens (2010), “Modern Modern” at Chelsea Art Museum, New York (2009), “Open Field” at CCA, Glasgow (2008) and “If it didn’t exist you’d have to invent it: a partial Showroom history” at The Showroom, London (2006). She was shortlisted for the Becks Futures prize at the ICA, London in 2004.

Hayley Tompkins is represented by The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York and Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, CA.

For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art

ARTWORKS