JEREMY THOMAS

Jeremy Thomas attended the College of Santa Fe to study painting and printmaking, both of which he had been doing since high school, even apprenticing with a master printmaker, in Oklahoma. However, one semester while moving out of his dormitory, boxes and bags of his belongings piled up as he loaded them into his truck; the wooden box that held all of his painting supplies and brushes went missing. Thus ended Thomas’ career as a painter. The next semester he took a sculpture class and never looked back.

Jeremy Thomas’ sculptures are often made of steel; cut, welded, and folded into geometric shapes. The metal is heated to well over 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit at which point the metal becomes as supple and elastic as clay. Thomas then inflates the forms with air; here chance comes into action as metal and air interact. The final pieces are powder-coated in slick colors sourced from industrial manufacturers that complement and contrast with the surface of suede-like rust patina that Thomas adds to one or more sides of each piece. The combination of color, material, and sensual forms sets up an interesting juxtaposition. The forms, solid as they are, seem to rest at some ineffable point between chance and intention, lighthearted and serious, feminine and masculine.

Thomas’ most recent body of work stems from a pandemic-era urge to be “cleaner and lighter”, and so he has traded steel for canvas for this colorful series. Still intent on leveraging air as a medium, Thomas coats his stitched design in resin, inflates the work, and then manipulates the form until each crease and fold are just so. Lastly, he leaves the work to cure into its final form before the finishing surface treatments. Of the process, Thomas says, “There’s an immediacy to fabric, and it allows me to get shapes that I’ve always wanted to get with steel but couldn’t.”

Jeremy Thomas’ work is included in the permanent collections of New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Frederick Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; Quartz Mountain Arts and Conference Center, Lone Wolf, OK (destroyed by fire); as well as numerous private collections.

Stretchy Pants organic cotton, resin, vinyl

11.75 x 17 x 11.5 inches