The Unrelenting Stream: Contemporary Society from All Directions

DARYL THETFORD
These are the hundred storms that batter us internally and externally, creating chaos and a heightened sense of disarray that cannot be tamed as long as we refuse to examine all of the fragments.

DARYL THETFORD:

The Unrelenting Stream: Contemporary Society from All Directions

BAUCUS GALLERY, April 12 - June 23, 2024

Opening Reception with Artist Talk: April 12th @ 6:00 p.m.

Daryl Thetford’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including the Ormond Museum of Art in Ormond Beach, Florida; the Art Museum of the University of Memphis; and the Knoxville Museum of Art; the Alexandria Museum of Art in Louisiana; the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles; the Hunter Museum of Art in Chattanooga; the Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama; the Coffman Gallery at the University of Minnesota; and the Museum of Anthropology of the University of California-Chico. Thetford has been commissioned by numerous public agencies and corporations, including the Chattanooga Parks and Recreation Department; the City of Loveland, Colorado; Des Moines Area Community College of Iowa; Sony Records in Nashville; Arrow Electronics and Dorsey and Whitney in Denver; the Mullins Group in Madison, Wisconsin; the Menard Financial Group in Houston; and the Utah Orthopedic Spine & Injury Center in Salt Lake City; Scripps Networks in Knoxville, Tennessee and Ryan Companies in Tampa, Florida. His work has also appeared in numerous publications, including Architects and Artisans, The Dorsey Post, Modern Luxury, Twill, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Grand Rapids Press, Penn State News, The Tennessean, Palm Springs Life, and Nashville Arts Magazine. In addition, his work is in public and corporate collections including those of the Mayor’s Office, City of Hoover, Alabama; Penn College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania; the Texas Office of Tourism in Austin; Ryan Companies in Tampa, Florida; Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Sioux City, South Dakota, The Mullins Group in Madison, Wisconsin; KP Development in St Louis, Missouri, Land Development Strategies in Kansas City, Missouri and Tanglewood Property Group, in Houston, Texas.

Artist Statement

Initially thought of The Unrelenting Storm series as a linear progression depicting man’s struggle, pain and search for resolution.  As time passed, however, I realized that man’s search does not progress in a linear fashion, but rather is something more akin to poetry, with bits and pieces woven together to create moments of wonder, insight, resolution and pain. Below is the artist statement to accompany this series.

We are bombarded with advertisements on billboards, cars, television, and in the sky. News, e-mail, weather updates, images of war, social networking pages, and stories of loss, hunger, and natural and man-made disasters are delivered to our computers and phones night and day. These are the external things, the information, data, and titillating images that impinge on our senses, demanding our attention in a hundred different ways.

And we are bombarded from within as well, by our own unremitting thought cycles: a constant loop of hopes and fears, dreams and worries, a relentless anxiety against the specter of which we yearn to predict and control the future. It is this very angst which further impacts the quality and future of our relationships, our health, the health of those we care about, and our dreams of accomplishment and success, as we find ourselves toiling, as hero or villain of the stories we tell ourselves, in the shadow of our mortality.

These are the hundred storms that batter us internally and externally, creating chaos and a heightened sense of disarray that cannot be tamed as long as we refuse to examine all of the fragments.

What, exactly, are these fragments? How can we engage in a dialogue with chaos that advances, rather than alienates us, from the interior and exterior events that invade and infuse our lives? What is our task in the face of this confusion? This series asks the viewer to engage in this dialogue, to provide possible answers, or better yet, to live with these questions and the other questions brought forth from the viewer’s unconscious.