You can’t always get what you want...
THOMAS GLEANER

JANUARY 12 - FEBRUARY 23, 2022

Opening Reception with the Artist
Wednesday, January 12, 6 - 8PM

SOCO Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of You can’t always get what you want . . . , a solo exhibition by artist Thomas Gleaner featuring new paintings and a text-based sculpture. The gallery will host a public opening reception with the artist on January 12, 2022 from 6 - 8PM. This will be Gleaner’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

The work in this exhibition captures the inherent vulnerability of language, which is susceptible to spin, manipulation, obfuscation, and misinterpretation. More specifically, Gleaner’s work ponders humanity's enduring unwillingness to heed the wise counsel of life lessons compiled throughout the ages.

For You can’t always get what you want . . . , the artist cites lyrics from popular songs that convey broader universal truths. Over time, their intrinsic wisdom has transcended their original melodic contexts. Select lines from iconic songs such as Ms. Lauryn Hill’s “Everything Is Everything” and The Beatles’ “Let It Be” are handwritten in layers onto vibrant, abstract canvases. As words twist like cascading vines, their syntax is rendered illegible, undermining any value or meaning the quoted refrains might offer. The text-based wall sculpture, Sonnet (2021-22), is fabricated in mirrored stainless steel. Viewers are faced with their multi-faceted reflections in the words of William Shakespeare’s classic “Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

On view in SOCO Annex, a new expansion space at the gallery, is Four Seasons: a suite of four 8x5-foot paintings that express the ever-changing nature of one’s inner serenity. Each canvas draws aesthetic inspiration from seasonal flora and incorporates an abstracted transcription of the “Serenity Prayer” by Reinhold Niebuhr.

As the inherent nature of humanity remains impulsive and fallible, these works may illuminate one’s unconscious reluctance to convert rational awareness into a more positive and sustainable life practice. In a sense, Gleaner’s work can be interpreted as the artist’s own search for harmony within the dissonance. In this “Information Age”, we have unlimited access to all this wisdom and knowledge, but to what end?

Thomas Gleaner (American, b. 1969)

Thomas Gleaner’s mixed-media artist’s books, paintings, and installations may be viewed as "patchwork quilts of the subconscious." Sourcing the historic spectrum of literature, philosophy, and high/low culture, Gleaner has developed a signature style that charts a vibrant, personal cartography defined by chance, intuition, curiosity, and osmosis.

Gleaner received his MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in 2020. His commissioned works have been featured at the North Carolina Museum of Art, The Halsey Institute for Contemporary Art, and The Craft Museum of Finland. His works are held in numerous private and public collections including the Mint Museum, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is a recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship, a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, and was honored in 2015 with UNC Charlotte’s College of Arts + Architecture inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award.

Thomas Gleaner, Refrain 20, 2021, enamel, acrylic, oil, and interference pigment on canvas over panel, 48 x 32 inches