At Almine Rech, Blair Thurman Revs Up the “Look of Kool” and his Hot Wheels Inspiration

Drawing from the Warhol school of Pop Art, American artist Blair Thurman explores consumer culture and the relationship between art and modern living. As he blurs the line between painting and sculpture, Thurman combines his deep interests in pop culture and familiar forms to create works that straddle the abstract and the representational. At Almine Rech, a selection of the artists new work is on display in “Mature Blonde,” the artist’s first solo show at the London gallery.

Amid the larger pop-culture landscape, Thurman’s personal iconography is at play in what Steve Parrino has called “a haphazard reclaiming of the ‘Look of Kool.’ ” The micro and the macro are integral to Thurman’s process, which leads to his drawing inspiration from a number of consumer products, including the automobile. During childhood, for example, as he played with his Hot Wheels toys, Thurman witnessed the constant evolution, modification, and rebranding of their colors and designs.

“[E]very season, every new series would be painted or customized, modified in some way,” he told the art critic and curator Nicolas Trembley, “so it’s like different ways of handling the same painting.” That method, Thurman said, carried over to his own works, which are often sculptural in their monumentality. “[A] lot of my work in painting is layered on previous works. If I make a painting and I like it, I want to relive that because I enjoy painting.” He calls the result “a natural lineage,” not unlike the the iterations of automobile models big and small.