Inspired by movies, pop culture, fashion, and Bernini, Storm Tharp has been exhibiting his ink and gouache paintings in Portland, Oregon and Geneva, Switzerland for years. His work will be included in the 2010 biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. DailyServing’s Bean Gilsdorf recently spoke with the artist about his inclusion in the Whitney Biennial, the idea of identity as performance, and the role of realism and abstraction in his current portraits.

Storm Tharp, Cream Puff (2008)

Bean Gilsdorf: You just finished the work that’s going into the 2010 Whitney Biennial. How many pieces?

Storm Tharp: Five pieces, all large-scale portraits.

BG: And how did the Whitney process start?

ST: Well, there’s the condensed version, which is about this biennial and my relationship to it. But when Larry Rinder curated the biennial—that would have been about eight years ago—it was the first time that I had ever been exposed to somebody coming to town on behalf of the Whitney. So when you ask how it started, I want to take it all the way back there. I feel like there was some momentum that started then.

BG: And you’re in the collection of the Whitney.

ST: That’s true, but they [2010 Whitney Biennial curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari] weren’t aware of that. I assumed they knew. I brought it to their attention and we thought it was really funny.

BG: And did you meet with Larry back then?

ST: Yeah. Little did he know, or did I know, that the work that was so unbelievably half-baked at that time would turn into the nugget of where I am now.

BG: What did you show him then?

ST: It’s funny, I was really embarrassed as soon as he walked out the door. I was just scratching the surface about Japanese theater, where the details in the masks denote the kind of character being played. This is also mirrored in Chinese opera: messy facial makeup helps the audience understand that the character is unstable. I had just scratched the surface of this kind of representation, the physiognomy of the face. And I brought up Noh, and Larry was immediately like, “Oh, you’re interested in the theater”, and I realized that I had no idea what I was talking about. And the work was totally juvenile and half-baked. But that work led to where I am now.

Storm Tharp The Ex-King (2006)

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