- Venue
- General Office Gallery, Stourbridge DY8 1PS
- Location
- West Midlands
The current exhibition at General Office Gallery is a solo exhibition by studio artist Elena Thomas. It presents a survey of recent studio practice; departing from stitched fabric and object based works into a new phase of small to large scale drawn and collaged works.
The GO gallery space has soft grey painted walls and an extraordinary light filled space curtesy of a partial glass ceiling. It supports the presence of a group of large scale paper works, unframed and hung to experience at a distance and close up. Paper has a gentle curl at the edges and ‘frames’, by shadow, bringing depth and structure to the pieces.
The title ‘Cause and Effect’ realises Thomas’s approach. Each piece appears as part of, maybe a larger other; lines wrap edges and paint leaks. Clouds of paint formations find concentration through the wrapping of graphite lines bearing tiny torn words that read a language of longing.
Together paint and pencil marks intrigue and suggest the undercurrents of bodily and watery thought and process, glances and winces, a tangling of energy and then cool relief flood across sheets of paper. They become wrapped and defined by graphite and intricate pencil work.
The P.V. included a session by Thomas’s band ‘The Sitting Room’, music filled the room, concentration to lyric and sound focused energy back to the art work. Song, lyric, pulse and harmonies interconnecting audience and art work was a beautiful and fulfilling part to the celebration of this exhibition.
The first ‘In Conversation’ at the gallery will be with Elena Thomas on Sunday 18th August from 3-4pm.
