Category: Exhibitions

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Prints ‘r’ us

Steven Thomas Exhibition: Prints 'r' us invite

All photographs by Brian Usher unless otherwise credited.

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The images on view are the result of my formative influences, just like every other artist, however these are mine;

  • being taught by John Hoyland, Patrick Caulfield & Allen Jones at Chelsea School of Art.
  • British & American Pop Art (particularly Peter Blake).
  • two years in the rock’n’roll business in the sixties.
  • three decades as co-founder & creative director of the highly successful design group Whitmore-Thomas, working upon an extraordinary array of of truly iconic projects from Biba (‘The most beautiful store in the world’ – The Sunday Times) to Paul McCartney, from Levis, Pepsi & Esso to London Transport & Subaru World Rally Team.
  • the wonderful flexibility of the English language, allowing me to create visual images involving, hopefully, humorous & witty linguistic gymnastics.

Amalgamating these influences from painting, particularly Pop Art & Hard Edge, design craft, rock’n’roll & word-play has given me the vocabulary to create these images in this exhibition.

If a picture tells a story, then these artworks are my history; using elements from my early art school Hard Edge paintings, iconic images that I created during my design career & references from my more recent print images, & using my not-forgotten skills of drawing & painting, photography & collage making, I have assembled a suite of six prints entitled “ArtAngels”, a series of autobiographical totems – symmetrical kaleidoscopic new images from my past.

There are also two images, as a diptych, from the “Americana” series reflecting my continued involvement with contemporary Pop Art, with visual puns of branding.

Lastly there are four images from the “Clash of the Titans” suite – images that result from the accident of nomenclature, word-play, Spoonerisms & puns. One day I’ll attempt the image that is Boy George Michael Angelo Dundee Cake, but until then…….

24 Oct 2012 –27 Jan 2013

CHELSEA Futurespace
Hepworth Court
Grosvenor Waterside
Gatliff Road
London SW1W 8QP

Tel: 0207 514 6983

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The Body Clothed in Art

Steven Thomas Exhibition: The Body Clothed in Art

“to be naked is to be deprived of clothing; the nude is a body clothed in art.” – Kenneth Clark.

All 150 contributing artists were given an identical canvas upon which was printed the dotted outline of an artist’s wooden mannequin, which was universally ignored – the brief being to clothe it in art – Wooden Art in my case, thus The King, Elvis Presley.

The proceeds of the silent auction went to the AGBI & the CAC Trust charities.

Image: The King – Wooden Art, 35 X 25 cm, acrylic, gouache & pencil on board. January 2012

February-March 2012

Chelsea Arts Club
143 Old Church Street
London SW3

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Ideal Home

Steven Thomas Print: Farts for Art's Sake

“this exhibition gives a view of the Ideal Home somewhere between domestic bliss & a living hell”

This mixed show was based upon Roger Fry’s Omega Workshop’s philosophy where art & design collide or cohabit in domestic interiors – for example, a Ritvelt or Marcel Breuer chair, or ceramics by Roy Lichtenstein or Patrick Caulfield, or Frederick Etchell’s design for rugs which caused an enormous furore at the Ideal Home Show of 1911. Hence the Biba Baked Beans image – glamorous packaging for an everyday product; my beans can was used for an advertising campaign for the Museum of London, carrying the headline of ‘Arty Farty London’.

October 2011
CHELSEA space
Chelsea College of Art and Design
16 John Islip Street
London, SW1P 4JU
+44 (0)7841 783129

www.chelseaspace.org

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HareRaising

Steven Thomas Exhibition: Hare Raising

A charity show & auction for Great Ormonde Street Hospital, organized by Michael van Clark, the celebratory hairdresser, hence the title & the highly eclectic array of contributing artists, from Tracy Emin & Marc Quinn to Jeremy Paxman, Twiggy & Princess Beatrice, including me! It raised over £500,000. “Hare Rama’ – just a reaction to the proscribed outlined image of floppy fluffy–bunnykins.

Image: Hare Rama, Hare Rama 30 x 25 cm, giclee print on 330 gsm Somerset Art paper

April 2011
Heartbreak Gallery
Bulstrode St
London W1

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The Exquisite Corpse

Steven Thomas - The Exquisite Corpse Exhibition

A revival of the Dadaist parlour game, The Exquisite Corpse – one complete image randomly made from three differing images from three different artists portraying the Head, the Body or the Legs.

I don’t remember the head & body images combined with mine, but I did get Rose Hilton’s Legs at the silent auction.

May 2010
Chelsea Arts Club
143 Old Church Street
London SW3