Marta Thoma Hall–To See with Eyes Closed

Anglim/Trimble is pleased to present our exhibition To See with Eyes Closed by Marta Thoma Hall.

In the exhibition To See with Eyes Closed, Marta Thoma Hall employs sculpture, painting, collage, and textiles to transcribe her inner world and meditate on motherhood, grief, and the nature of existence.

Her mixed media dreamscapes of animal and human hybrids, rupturing and merging, evoke the awe of nature and the mysterious complexities of life. Three-dimensional printed sculptures, wood and other elements disrupt the surface of the canvas as if the work is emerging from another realm and solidifying into ours.

Thoma Hall’s current work was impacted by the sudden death of her daughter Michelle in 2023. “Michelle experienced life more intensely than others—her joy was radiant, her pain deep and unrelenting,” Thoma Hall writes. In attempting to comprehend the finality of death, Thoma Hall creates alongside the presence of her daughter, sensing Michelle in her eyes and heart, urging Thoma Hall towards bright colors and unexpected materials. Their conversation is an ongoing dialogue between absence and presence, loss and rebirth.

The Dadaists and Surrealists, responding to the trauma of world war, used automatic writing and drawing as a method of freeing the subconscious. They believed that creating with their eyes closed allowed the unconscious mind to tap into the deepest recesses of the human experience. Thoma Hall similarly creates in the wake of trauma, searching for meaning after unimaginable loss. In the work My Grief, an umbilical cord emerges, draping and connecting to the sculpted disruption—a mother to child.

She was also inspired by the memory of her grandmother Lila, who lived to be 100. A passionate mountain climber and fiercely independent woman, Lila believed in reincarnation, claiming she had once been a witch burned at the stake.

Nests and bonfires are a recurring motifs in the exhibition: the nest protects, while the bonfire threatens destruction as well as rejuvenation. The artist employs both, closing the circle between life and death, mother and daughter, past and present.

“At this very moment, I rejoice—and prefer to see with eyes closed.” – Marta Thoma Hall

Please join us for a reception on Saturday, March 1 from 4-6 pm in our upstairs gallery at Minnesota Street Project. 

The exhibition is on view through Saturday, April 26.

Marta Thoma Hall received her BFA from UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. She has exhibited extensively, including recent group exhibitions at Mindi Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL; Gallery 120710, Berkeley, CA; Galactic Panther Art Gallery, Alexandria, VA; and Van Der Plas Gallery, New York, NY. In 2022 she founded Hall Art + Technology Foundation (HATF), an educational arts foundation focused on the intersection of art and science in the modern world. Thoma Hall lives in Oakland, CA and Kauai, HI.