In the works made a few years before the artist’s death, Thornton Dial created layered, heavily textured compositions with an array of found materials, such as ash, wire fencing and scrap metal. Caked onto the thick canvases, the objects are almost unrecognizable—towels look like porous coral and curled scrap metal appears clothlike. Including figurative paintings and drawings from as early as 1987, this show provides a narrative to Dial’s art career, which began in Alabama, where he had worked for 30 years at a plant that made boxcars; pointing to everyday American life, his work and use of found objects addresses Black American history and identity, while animating and finding beauty within these materials. Upon close inspection the details become endless, the works resembling archaeological sites waiting to be unearthed.

Blum & Poe
2727 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
On view through June 10, 2023