Artist Statement As an artist, I feel it is important for a painting to convey a feeling to the viewer. I am not interested in capturing a realistic interpretation of land formations. I do not work plein air or use reference photographs. Each of my paintings begins with the memory of a place. They loosely depict the land, but more importantly, each work is an attempt to capture the essence of the light, color, movement, beauty and feeling of the fields, forests and vistas I remember exploring as a young man growing up in the rural South.
My paintings often utilize open pathways or winding trails that lead to vanishing points on the horizon. For me, these paths serve two purposes in that they help lead the viewer into the spaces of these imagined landscapes while representing the path of life itself, with its end unknown and waiting to be discovered.
Bio Brief Wayne Thornley is an artist working in painting and mixed media. His work has been represented by galleries throughout the Southeast and in California and purchased for several private and corporate collections including Greenwood Genetics Center, FirstFederal of SC, and Bon-Ton Stores, Inc.
He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina where he studied art, marketing and design.