Michael C. Thorpe: An Insane Madman of Marvelous Living

Michael C. Thorpe describes himself as a painter working in fabric and thread upon a foundation of drawing which he views as the evolved practice of mark making akin to stitches of  quiltmaking. Thorpe challenges himself to work with every mark he makes—“no erasing, no regrets,” he says. His compositions are born of long-term projects in which Thorpe is engaged—quilted paintings and works on paper that explore his surroundings, photography, abstraction, letters and words as subjects; sculptural constructions created by combining found objects and quilting debris; and performance pieces emerging from the dedication to an idea. The result is a figurative and conceptual art that is as ingenious as it is uniquely contemporary.

Michael C. Thorpe was raised in Newton, MA and earned his BA from Emerson College in Boston, where he studied Photojournalism. Thorpe and his work have been featured on NPRand PBS and in Artscope Magazine, Boston Art Review, The Boston Globe, CNN Style, Cultured Magazine, Howl, among others. Thorpe was recently featured in a Dove Men+Care television commercial and he participated in a collaboration with Nike and the NBA for the league’s 75th anniversary. 

Works by Michael C. Thorpe are included in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and numerous private collections around the country. Thorpe’s work was also included in "Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories," organized and first presented at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2021) and then at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles (2023). In 2023, the Paul R. Jones Museum, University of Alabama presented a solo exhibition, "Michael C. Thorpe: Nonsensical Formalism.” In 2024, Thorpe had four solo exhibitions at four museums: California Heritage Museum (Santa Monica, CA), The Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, DE), Fuller Craft Museum (Brockton, MA), and Hickory Museum of Art (Hickory, NC). 

This lecture is free and open to the public. Made possible by the William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Lectureship in Fiber and Material Studies.

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