Eliza K Thomas    
     
 

Please contact the artist about smaller artworks on paper.

Art Lessons - Please contact the artist about private art lessons for children and adults.

Email:
info@elizakthomas.com

Studio is open by appointment

 

 

EDUCATION
2009 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, independent study with Harmony Hammond. Snowmass, CO.
2009 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, painting workshops with Patsy Krebs and Gregory Botts. Snowmass, CO.
2008 School of Visual Arts, Continuing Education Division: Painting workshop with Roberto Juarez. New Lebanon, NY.
2006 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, painting workshop with Mary Hambleton. Snowmass, CO.
2005 Six month intensive independent study with artist Laurent Baude. Lagnes, Provence, France.
2005 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, summer workshop with Sharon Louden and Theresa Chong. Snowmass, CO.
2000-4 Alexander Technique Teacher Training Course. Austin, TX and Berkeley, CA. Certified in 2004 by the American Society for the Alexander Technique.
2003 The Art School of the Austin Museum of Art, painting workshop with Malou Flato. Austin, TX.
2003 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, summer workshop with Allison Stewart. Snowmass, CO.
1996 B.A. in Italian, Barnard College, Columbia University; Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude. New York City, NY.
1992 Parsons School of Design, "Summer Intensive Studies: New York". New York City, NY.

 

EXHIBITIONS
2009 "Dichotomy of Surface and Image". Jewish Community Association of Austin. Austin, TX.
2009 "Love Poems to the Vegetable". Jeffrey's Restaurant, Austin, TX.
2009 "Five x Seven", group exhibit. Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin, TX.
2009 Ladybird Johnson Gala and Silent Art Auction. Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, TX (Donation)
2009 New Works on Paper, solo exhibit. Kick Pleat, Austin, TX
2009 East Austin Studio Tour. Austin, TX.
2008 "Chase Underground", group exhibit. Chase Tower, Austin, TX
2008 "Five x Seven", group exhibit. Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin, TX.
2008 "Texas Hall of Fame Film Awards" Benefit for Austin Film Society. Austin, TX. (Donation)
2008 Ladybird Johnson Gala and Silent Art Auction. Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, TX. (Donation)
2007 "Postcards From The Edge". Visual AIDS, New York City, NY.
2007 "White Buffalo Project", group exhibit. Quattro Gallery, Austin, TX.
2007 "Red Hot Red Dot" , group exhibit. Women and Their Work, Austin, TX.
2007 Austin Art Start Studio Tour. Austin, TX.
2007 "Super Summer Group Show". Grand Contemporary, Lafayette, LA.
2007 Ladybird Johnson Gala and Silent Art Auction. Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, TX.
(Donation)
2006 "Red Hot Red Dot", group exhibit. Women and Their Work, Austin, TX.
2006 "RED", group exhibit. Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, TX.
2006 Two person exhibit. Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, TX.
2006 Ladybird Johnson Gala and Silent Art Auction. Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, TX. Piece chosen as invitational cover image. (Donation)

 

COLLECTIONS
The University of Texas School of Law, Austin, TX.
Houston's Restaurant, Austin, TX.
Becky Beaver, Austin, TX.
Luci Baines Johnson, Austin, TX.

 

RESIDENCIES
2008 Vermont Studio Center, January. Artist residency grant. Johnson, VT.
2007 Vermont Studio Center, December. Johnson, VT.
2005 Six month studio residency. Provence, France.
 

 

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2005-9 Private art teacher. Austin, TX.
2006 Art Teacher, Morgen Academy. Working with Fourth through Sixth grades. Austin, TX.
2005 Art From the Streets, facilitator. Austin Resource Center for the Homeless. Austin, TX.
2003 Expressive Arts Summer Workshops for children and adults, facilitator. Austin, TX.
2003 Art Teacher, 5th and 6th grades. KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Austin College Preparatory.  Austin, TX.
2001 Decorative painter. San Francisco, CA.
1999-2001 Sole proprietor, Atmospheric Creations: decorative painting, interior design, creative consultation.
1998 ARTPACE, Foundation for Contemporary Art, archival assistant and studio assistant to artists-in-residence. San Antonio, TX,
1993 Arthur Roger Gallery, summer intern. New Orleans, LA.

 


Statement of Artistic Concerns

Besides being born with a gypsy soul and an intimate connection with nature, I was raised in a family of storytellers who considered travel to be a valuable part of a person's education. Thus from a young age I was exposed to other places and other cultures. The love of travel and global exploration has stayed with me, having become a part of my work. Painting is a journalistic response to life for me, and I set out to tell stories of different landscapes--of living things in those landscapes, of the feelings spots of time in those landscapes elicit--in the form of 'visual poems' or 'odes' to the natural world. And although my work is not blatantly political, it is the result of a sustained observation of the natural environment, a place whose beauty and value is threatened by our increasingly urban and industrialized culture. I feel tremendous compassion and awe when I look at that world and those feelings inevitably enter as subjects of my paintings. Therefore, I hope a viewer of my work experiences a more intimate connection with the natural world and that by personalizing this connection, they may experience the world at large in a more sensitive and thoughtful way.

I strive to create visual counterparts--at times abstract, at times figurative and representational--to the geography, ecology and atmosphere of the places I paint, and to explore and reveal the spiritual landscape that exists within the physical landscape.

I am inspired by gardens, my garden, deep woods, dusk, Japanese prints, calligraphy, cracks in roads and sidewalks, shadows, arching lines in space, bare branches against winter sky, sounds of wind, moments with flowers, poetry, music, fabrics and textiles, color and light, horizons, mystery of emotion, and beauty.

My studio practice involves searching and observing, waiting and receiving, and allowing intuition and chance to take part in the process by which a work comes to fruition. My process involves first absorbing the essence of a place, of a moment, of a living thing; and then allowing whatever I've received to distill its way down and re-emerge as visual imagery. The nature of the support determines the mark making, as I am interested in letting the media and the composition play off the material on which they are applied.

Emil Nolde, a German Expressionist painter who, when asked his intentions, replied: "To grasp what lies at the very heart and to transform Nature by infusing it with one's own mind and spirit."

 

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You

 

By HAFIZ, 14th century Persia
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

 

 


info@elizakthomas.com

All artwork and images © 2005-2010 Eliza Thomas