Thomas Paquette: Haven

May 3 - May 31

Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Haven, a solo exhibition featuring new paintings by artist Thomas Paquette. Through this body of work, Paquette explores the landscapes he regards as spaces of sanctuary—places not only of retreat but of renewal, where life, creativity, and personal reflection can flourish.

The exhibition title, Haven, emerged from Paquette’s thoughtful distinction between refuge and haven. While ‘refuge’ implies an escape that must be sought or constructed, a haven exists as an innate environment in which to thrive. His paintings explore these spaces of protection and endurance, where nature itself proliferates unimpeded. This awareness extends to an irony that runs through Haven: the very landscapes that feel most distant—primeval forests, remote mountains, vast skies—are inextricably linked to human existence. These ecosystems function as nature’s storehouses, sustaining biodiversity, regulating climates, and perhaps even holding undiscovered medicines.

Paquette’s artistic approach mirrors the complexity of the habitat he paints. Many of the collection’s largest works depict old-growth forests—lands that have subsisted apart from human interference—havens that are eternally dynamic, continually shaped by the life they sustain. His paintings possess richly textured surfaces that reflect nature’s layers—geological formations, accumulated humus, the interplay of light and organic matter—replicating the slow accumulation of time and transformation that define these landscapes. He describes his process as capturing, “…the flow of energy from curiosity to curiosity,” each brushstroke carrying the imprint of his evolving exploration of the environment’s rhythms of growth, decay, and renewal. 

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