Deeply responsive to Catholicism, current events, folk ritual, legend and literature, his work, ranging from small – scale drawings, to enormous complex environments, embodied the compulsive intensity of the way he lived.
Paul Thek (1933 – 1988) was born in New York but spent much of his tome travelling and working in Europe, often with a group of collaborators. Thek’s influence and the relevance of his work to contemporary practice has become increasingly apparent. His work was shown widely in the USA and Europe since the 1960s, but this was his first solo exhibition in the UK. The exhibition focused on Thek’s drawings on newspaper, paintings and notebooks, with a selection of small sculptures.