Louise THOMAS

Born 1984 London

Education
2004-7 BA Fine Art, University College Falmouth
2003-4 Art Foundation, Kingston University

Solo Exhibition

2007 Ferdynand Zweig Scholarship, Poly Arts Center, Cornwall

Group Exhibition

2008 ”Kapelmeister Pulls a Dozy” (Curated by Richard Meaghan) Seven Seven Contemporary

2008 BISCHOFF WEISS @ Zoo art fair, Royal Academy, London

2008 Campden gallery, Gloucestershire, England

2008 “Sunspot Mirage” BISCHOFF/WEISS, London

2007 “4 New Sensations” Truman Brewery/Brick Lane, organized by the Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4, London
2008 “Sweet Monument” The Sassoon Gallery, London

2007 “Concrete Hole You Clench my Soul” PZ Gallery, self-curated, Penzance

2007 “Sunrise with Sea Monsters” Trinity Buoy Wharf, London

Residencies and Awards

2008 Nominated for the Sovereign European painting prize

2007 Celeste Painting Prize, (Short listed, Artists Category)

2007 4 New Sensations (Short listed), organized by the Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4

2006 Ferdynand Zweig Memorial Travel Scholarship

I work freely and at the start of a painting have no definite idea of how the work will end and the way it will look. I am most productive working on 5 or 6 paintings at one time. Often two or three of the paintings will start an argument with the others to ensure that they will be completed. That is necessary for me to make progress and develop my on going themes. The paintings that start and sustain the dialogue are usually more useful to me because they create the room for development, lasting for a longer period of time whereas the two defendants are realised long before and come out right.

Thematically my practice revolves around discovering the urban past because the apparent permanence of buildings terrifies me and allures me. Recently I have been interested in the idea of the holiday resort, from 1930’s national socialist architecture to the shiny make-shift resorts of North America. Working from many different photographic resources and locations, sometimes offered by friends or places I visit. This pool of reference has enabled me to perform my own archaeology through the language of paint, to explore the memorial qualities and history of resort architecture.

These new paintings attempt to merge previous ideas and anxieties I have had about the architecture and monuments of past regimes into new imaginary scenarios. The atmosphere of failure and abandonment is still present in the concrete and disrepair however, the memory and nostalgia for the built past, I have tried to retain and merge with a future imagined world.

Background and influence

Sites of interest for me have included 1930’s Italian children’s holiday camps, North American resort complexes, Victorian hospitalsand British Lidos.  These are a selection of the places I have visited to inform my paintings. I make moving films of the architecture to document the light/dark and actual space inside the architecture. The moving images are important as a trigger to recall the atmosphere of the place. I also take many still photographs to use in collage and help me with composition