Greg Thielker

Sites and non-sites

Lived all over the world. Making work where ever you are.

Read an image, the feeling the story behind the image.

How we process an image

Abstract

• pushed ideas not technique
• after graduation he moved to colorado to paint
• Landscape, physical that is a memory of the place

Portable materials

•  going out and not letting materials stop you

St Louis 

• Grad school

Boston

• Studio group 

Through the Windshield 

• oil painting 
• what you would see as you were driving
• separated from the outside world while totally immersed in it
• a balance of realism and abstraction
• 5-6 years working in this 

Experiences abroad- teaching, volunteering, projects

• "do the marco polo route"
• American Vertigo by Bernard - Henri Levy and Rory Steward
• the double narrative
• Residency in India
• don't come with materials or a plan
• nothing to lose but not knowing how it would work
• temple sites from 1000 ad, describe their journey to the temple. Made an installation next to the temple.
• month long experience
• many different people, musicians writers musicians. Keeping the conversation alive.
• Larger project about India
• there is no single truth
• be a channel about many views for one single place
• from Kolkata to Dehli
• went to paint but he did drawings instead, more flexible
• drawing every 76 km
• made it more democratic 
• small drawings 
• the similarities within the small drawing
• moment between old and new, and did interviews. Reinforcing and learning about the place
• collision of old and new
• Drew the road, no nonsense approach

Interview Quotes

• drivers - "brother this is the oldest one, this shrine is from my grandfathers time, and no one knows hold old this is,... one person makes money and the rest surfers.. "
• the frustration and grim acceptance of reality

Downtown DC

• arrange the millage stops along the road, all done with pencils 
• biggest is 10.5 -11 feet long
• all to fit into the carryon 
• quotes and pictures
• receipt from Calcutta - the journey as much as the stops
• the rose petals 

Afghanistan

• support of funding agencies, but mostly on their own.
• unfiltered access to people and communities
• overlap of history, Quadram, military base is there. 
• Crystal vase
• grave yard of tanks
• THe citadel and covered by an Afghan military base 
• more about history rather then military
• mud compound , it makes people safe, they feel sheltered
• every time he thought he understood something, another thing came up and changed his view
• simply documenting the place
• what can he learn and how can he display that history in an image
• drawing on Afghan newspaper. two flags tied together.
• scarves, the afghan dark striped older generation, young men the pixelated scarf
• air space, and interviews 
• the multiple picture of the space, the snow to spring or rebirth