This website is a retrospective virtual exhibition of the artwork of American artist Thia Rice.
Thia grew up in northeast Texas, but her professional creative life began in San Francisco in the 1970s. She attended U.C. Berkeley and San Francisco State University where she graduated with degrees in Philosophy and Art. Although California was supposed to be her escape from Texas, she met a fellow Texan in San Francisco establishing his life as an artist and married him.
Before devoting herself exclusively to studio artwork, she was fortunate to have employment in creative fields as managing editor of the international art-science-technology journal Leonardo and a natural history museum exhibit designer at the California Academy of Sciences. She freelanced in architectural drafting, graphic-web design, and photography. Thia also collaborated with her husband on his sculptural installation pieces internationally and in the U.S.
After 36 years together, Thia's husband passed away. This forced many changes, challenges, and a new direction in her creative life.
"Without his kind heart and quirky humor, my life darkened. Figuring out who I was without him beside me was challenging. I occupied myself with his legacy. I catalogued his work, designed his website, and reassembled some of his sculptures.
One day, I decided to go back to the studio to make a few things. A few things became a hundred things. Art became my path forward and the genesis of my current assemblage sculpture."
THIA RICE
ARTIST
The Works of Thia Rice
Curator's Critique
Thia Rice’s showroom is a noteworthy example of an artist’s evolution and process. Her creative career began in photography with her grandfather’s Brownie camera. Rice’s early darkroom experiments with photograms present bold contrast and silhouettes. Her masterful use of negative space and chiaroscuro in her black and white photography moves the viewer’s eye around each composition filled with graphic city patterns and what she calls “curious found objects.” As Rice began to incorporate color in her photography, she would later transition to photo illustration, drawing, printmaking and assemblage sculpture – all with the same acute awareness of design and composition. As with her 2D works, Rice’s sculpture remains true to her fascination with found objects riddled with marks, scuffs, and hints of their previous journey. Clearly influenced by the Bauhaus movement, Rice presents the materials in their honest and natural form. Like a mad scientist, she combines and repurposes them into sculptures – both figurative and architectural. Regardless of medium, Rice has maintained her wild imagination in producing work that makes you stop and stare. - Adam Kuehl, Artrepreneur, April 2021
ASSEMBLAGE
ART
While I work in several visual art mediums, this statement focuses on my three-dimensional sculpture.
From found items, I create assemblage art objects. Not all, but many of the sculptures I make are playful. I don't think art has to appear serious to be meaningful, and I delight when my work elicits smiles. The pieces that stray from whimsy study the elements of balance and aesthetic harmony in the juxtaposition and unity of objects. Whether humorous or formal, I create to work though angst and loss, explore the tenderness of memory, and strengthen a hopeful heart.
As a very contented introvert, searching for curious items to include in the pieces provides me a purposeful exploration of the world. I feel reverence in holding a seemingly insignificant used object that has survived only because over time, others have deemed it useful or special. I find imperfections appealing and prefer incorporating the found items with minimal or no modification. The patina of aged wood, etched glass, or a a hint of rust hold secrets.
The obsessive creative problem-solving involved in assembling the disparate and incongruous elements into a singular object with renewed meaning is intensely engaging. I abstain from working with chemicals and enjoy the challenge of mechanical adhesion between objects..
Assemblage is more my method of construction than aesthetic as my work is without the embellishment that typically characterizes contemporary assemblage. I tend toward minimalism and use as few elements as possible to convey meaning or personality.
Whether one is attracted to my art for the curious reimagining of found materials, a sculptural aesthetic, or simple whimsy -- whatever draws someone to value a work I have created brings me joy.