New Gallery / Thom Andriola are pleased to present Fete Bucolique, an exhibition of new work by Austin, Texas artist Terri Thomas. "Fete bucolique" is a term laden with sexual implications and traditionally refers to a festival of the pastoral life - Thomas's contemporary "fete bucolique" combines the frivolous fantasy of the French Rococo style with a dose of self-analysis and a media-influenced twist.


Color-saturated, precisely rendered and often shocking, Thomas' paintings emphasize the ridiculousness of, repulsion from and attraction to social taboos. Infatuated with the media's portrayal of beauty, sexuality, individuality and femininity her work explores how the media creates and feeds societal expectations. The work in Fete Bucolique is fraught with artifice and symbolism - often Thomas's form is at center stage simultaneously revealed and masked by the filters of social norms and deviance.


Thom Andriola