Thérèse Oulton

About

For the past 40 years Thérèse Oulton (b. 1953, Shropshire, UK) has held a critical position in painting towards both abstraction and figuration, challenging the orthodoxies of both. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 1987, Oulton evolved techniques of brushwork from a critical study of Old Master painting and controls the application of paint by a discipline related to conceptual art. The artist’s hermetic explorations oscillate between provocative image and luscious form, and the connection between abstraction and representation in Oulton’s work parallels the familiar Romantic opposition between nature and culture.

Repetition is central to Oulton’s work. Images on canvases are repeated through with fluctuations and permutations that exist as if they were an analogue translation of digital information. Oulton’s paintings are repetitive in a deliberate or automatic sense that suggests a relationship to the mechanical world of image production. Over the years Oulton has introduced suggestions of discernible signs or symbols, and of horizons and reflections, acknowledging the presence of the visible world and geological crisis in her work.

In a text by Charles Hagen, he writes ‘Thérèse Oulton’s paintings reiterate a central question of any art after the great formal discoveries of Modernism: how can style or story, inherently conventional but by the same token linked to societal concerns, be united with the freedom and riskiness of formal play?’.

Thérèse Oulton (b. 1973, Shropshire, UK) studied at Saint Martin's School of Art (1975-79) and the Royal College of Art (1980-83). Oulton was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1987 and has held solo exhibitions at Vardaxoglou Gallery, London, UK (2024); Pittsburgh Centre for the Arts, USA (1998); L.A. Louver, Los Angeles, CA (1991, 1994); Hirschl & Adler, New York, NY (1989); Marlborough Gallery, London, UK (1988–2010); Museum of Modern Art Oxford, UK (1986); Galerie Thomas, Munich, DE (1986); Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, AT (1986); Peterborough City Museum and Art Gallery, UK (1984); Gimpel Fils, London, UK (1984). Group exhibitions have taken place at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (1982); Serpentine Gallery, London (1984); Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1984); Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK (1984); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Victoria (1986); Tate Gallery, London (1987); Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati (1988); Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds (1988); ‘Aperto’, Venice Biennale, Venice (1990); Yale Center for British Art (1995). Oulton’s work can be found in the following public collections: Arts Council of Great Britain; British Council; British Museum; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Tate, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Yale Center for British Art, USA.