2021 Art Catalogue - "Explorations Collection"

Heather Thomas Art

explorations collection

About the artist explorations collection

Heather Thomas is a self-taught emerging visual artist and writer.

She credits her husband and fellow artist, Russell Thomas, with the inspiration that got her started on her painting journey. Sporadic at best before the pandemic, Heather has since made a decision to focus on developing her artistic voice through acrylic and mixed media projects. Believing that all our thoughts and choices are beacons that tell the Universe how it can best support us, this year Heather has decided go all in and follow one of her biggest joys, that of living from a place of pleasure and creativity. Heather is excited about where this path will take her and knows that everything will unfold as it is meant to.

Heather loves connecting with like-minded people. If her heart-centred work interests you, please reach out anytime: @HeatherThomasArt (Facebook/ Instagram).

Welcome! It is my pleasure to welcome you to this collection of explorations. This catalogue offers a series of exploratory works painted with the intention of getting to know myself as a visual artist and discovering what colours, styles, techniques and mediums I enjoy working with most.

What I now know is that I love to play with texture and paint together on canvas. I love trying new techniques and am always experimenting to find the right feel for each piece because each has a something specific to say. One of the most exciting things about this work is that I often begin a painting with a specific concept or idea, but that each one, without fail, ends up looking vastly different than what I had in my mind at the beginning.

While I generally work on 3 to 5 pieces at the same time, it usually takes me several weeks to complete a single work. One reason for this is that much of my work needs significant drying time, both for the texture medium and the dozens of layers of paint overtop. A second reason is that the process I use requires me to spend time with each piece, getting to know it and what it wants to share with the world. All of my work is intuitively guided and messages from Source get translated on to canvas through the flow of mindful play.

Heather Thomas Art

Do you know what the difference is between a soft “c” and a hard “c”? Audibly, the difference is significant, one being long and smooth, musical in nature and the other short, harsh and without compromise.

I favour the soft “c” myself, possibilites are seductive, inclusive and reminiscent of cursive writing and ice cream cones, days on the beach and the space between thoughts.

Heather Thomas Art

Deep Dive is a larger piece that invites us to pause and breathe, to take a moment and really feel the whispers of wisdom that come from within.

Twelve years of work in the healing arts has opened the door to a spirituality that I never thought possible, a connection with myself and Source that is deeper than anything else I have known. This piece is an attempt to capture, visually, the gifts that come from within.

Heather Thomas Art

This painting has had many iterations. I was finally able to grasp what it wanted to become with a resonance to a sense of freedom found “outside the box”.

I lived many years thinking inside a box and it is only recently that I have become selfaware enough to understand that my best work actually comes from outside the box, where I can walk my own path with freedom and joy, following the whispers of my heart.

Heather Thomas Art

This piece began in 2019 with cheesecloth and molding paste, blueish teals, turquoise greens, rust colours and gold leaf. It spent almost two years in my healing room witnessing transformation before it began its shift into the piece that it is today.

Exploring within ourselves, without knowing where we are going and beyond anything ever known, this triptych holds the secret to the Universe.

Heather Thomas Art

This piece came to be as I was thinking about our forests. I was thinking about how we clear cut trees and how inevitably, after the land is naked, nature begins to take over. The tree stumps are re-used and the forest regrows.

I spend a lot of time out hiking and working in my garden and appreciate everything that happens in and on the earth year-round, not just when my flowers bloom. Something about the cycle of nature is reassuring.

Heather Thomas Art

This is another work that has had many faces, layers and versions. It started out as gold, red and black dragon scales and morphed into the broken textured surface that you see now.

Some people see an elephant in the fog, others see a couple of people or a face. Whatever you see, I invite you to trust that it offers wisdom and information on a level that only you will understand.

Heather Thomas Art

I love lotus flowers. The image used as reference for this painting was of an over ripe lotus bloom that was beginning to drop its petals. I worked it over several weeks and began to find significance in the natural way things age. I brought in weeping drips from the petals and crackle paste to show that everything ages and in doing so we become more beautiful than we ever thought possible. Experimenting with some new texture paste brought this piece to a satisfying completion.

Heather Thomas Art

Using dark blues and light pinks, this piece emerged out of the ether without intention or planning.

Looking at it now, I think of all the bubbles in our lives; club soda flavoured with syrup, sparkling wine or champagne. I am especially drawn to bathtub bubbles and the luxury of taking a long hot bath in the middle of the day. What kind of bubbles make you happy?

Heather Thomas Art

Creating Home Theatre was fun and completely different. To begin, I painted the background and then sprinkled alcohol overtop. When I came back to work with it, the outline of a cat had undeniably emerged. Unable to ignore what this canvas was saying, I decided to have a little fun. This piece is a jest at a fat cat’s inclination for activity - or lack thereof - and a commentary on how many of us have weathered this pandemic in the same way.

Heather Thomas Art

Consciousness Rising is an inviting highly textured yet smooth painting. The illusion of dark water draws us in and textured mandalas give an impression of floating particles within the substrate.

This piece speaks to many people as a spiritual work that considers the depth of consciousness within and how only parts of ourselves float to the surface and are illuminated.

Heather Thomas Art SOLD

I am from Saskatchewan and enjoy big, open skies. Alberta also has beautiful skies, sunrises and sunsets. This piece is an homage to the prairies.

Painted on a recycled canvas that used to feature a fun image of a grizzly bear in a field of flowers (in bliss), it felt right to include bliss as part of the title to honour the previous work.

Heather Thomas Art

This painting sure took me on a journey.

I started with a wash of gold, magenta and cream and then went away for the weekend. When I came back it wanted to be something else. I darkened the reds, deepened the contrast and added a blue-ish black around the edges. The red splatters placed right at the end help tie everything together.

in situ view

Heather