Patricia Thornley’s works combine video, photography, sculpture, and music in an exploration of the spaces of fact, fantasy, and subjectivity in popular media.
She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, received an MFA from Bard College, and was a fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program. She lives and works in New York City, where she has shown with P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Smack Mellon Gallery, and AC Project Room. Other national and international venues include the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, The Revolving Museum in Boston, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff, and Paco des Artes in Sao Paulo. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York, The Vermont College of Fine Arts, Maine College of Art, and Pratt Institute.
Thornley’s experimental media projects work with existing pop-cultural forms in unusual combinations. In her most recent project, Songs for Criminals, and current project, This Is Us, she uses songwriting as a vehicle, introducing original musical interludes into a documentary atmosphere in a collision of categories and “taste” that points to intention, the efficacy of our cultural tools, and the limits of our imagination.
