Fire Gardens and the Weight of 1AM

M. Thomsen and Nicholas Harper reach deep into their archives to present a collection of abstract works resurfacing for the first time in years.

M. Thomsen: The Fire Garden Series

Thomsen’s Fire Garden series offers painted illustrations of the prophetic gardens found in religion and lore. Etymologically, the word "garden" derives from the Old English geard, meaning an enclosure—a sanctuary of fertility and pollination confined to a protected lot.

In Thomsen’s work, these gardens serve as safe domiciles for their occupants, until a sudden bolt of lightning or a passerby’s discarded match introduces a destructive utility. What follows is a slow smolder that builds into a total inferno, eventually settling into the trailing wisps of smoke rising from a moonscape of ash.

Nicholas Harper: The Weight of 1AM Series

Harper’s Weight of 1AM series explores the visual landscape of the "Witching Hour." It is a liminal space where the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is at its thinnest; a time when ghosts and devils take flight alongside the wings of inspiration, dreams, and the vast possibilities of the void.

Rocks, moons, bones, and allusions to musical notation take form within the crevasses stretched across the canvas. Some elements teeter while others hang in suspended tension—the pressure of an endless moment where time itself is arrested in space.

As you peer into the architecture of each piece, Harper asks: what do you see, and what words do the spirits whisper from the other side?