Jay Thompson

Artist Statement

I am a self taught artist living in Chicago. Thinking about economic inequality, I found web photos of small, everyday, lower middle-class housing that was slightly disheveled but with personality. I wanted to paint these in the midst of fantastical backgrounds to elevate their strangeness and beauty while again expressing tension between background and the central image. I have always loved Thiebaud’s hallucinatory landscapes, Hopper's windows and Hockney's work and these, among others, sparked my imagination resulting in the “Strange Neighbors” series.