10 Must-See Gallery Exhibitions during Armory Week 2024
In “Dream House,” New York–based British painter Stephen Thorpe draws inspiration from Carl Jung’s concept of the same name, in which the home symbolizes the human psyche. In this theory, each room is seen as an extension of a different part of the mind—both the personal and the collective. Drawing inspiration from psychoanalysis, sociology, and symbolism, Thorpe blurs the lines between the real and the abstract, illustrating the tensions between the internal and external worlds.
Thorpe focuses on the corners of rooms, at times filling this narrow, intimate vantage point with vibrant imagery, such as landscapes and exotic birds. In Sacred Landscape of Inside Things (all works 2024), for example, the mid-career artist depicts a serene landscape with an expansive perspective. This forms a contrast with works like A Symbol of Solitude for the Imagination and A Place of Reasoning Between the Inside and the Outside, in which thick, expressive swathes of paint cover the walls, perhaps symbolic of the physical and psychological barriers we build around us.
