Ian F. Thomas’ profile on Ceramics Now Magazine – View his works
“I have been making art objects for most of my life and I have found that I have a greater understanding of my work after making it. There is a mystery to things that people make. I choose the process of art-making as a medium to pose questions about my relationships with (art) objects, people and myself. Each time I start a work, regardless of the known impetus, the content of the work changes into something I didn’t previously know. I have been enjoying this unpredictability, lending my creative process to my intuition.
In the spectrum of communication I find making objects to be an efficient vehicle. I find myself engaged with object making in a similar way a writer is engaged with text. For me, objects and their relationship with their surroundings manifest into a language in itself. As in the installation “Weather Underground” I was interested in the site-specificity of the space I was working in, which used to be a classroom. Working in an intuitive mode without an intended outcome, I knew the materials I wanted to use and allowed the piece to develop through me. It was not until later that I came to the realization that the work was about me revisiting my own experiences of academia.
I have considered my work to be a window into my subconscious. After completing this work, it allowed me to question the original idea, the process of making it and the actual outcome, and through the work I am able to gain a better understand of its possible meaning and message. The practice of art is now a renewed engagement with my personal history. The visceral understanding that it grants my senses is as pleasurable as the beauty of the produced object. It is not my intent for the view to grasp these specific notions but to come to the work with their personal histories and to derive a visceral understanding through their senses.” Ian F. Thomas
Visit the artist’s website or his profile on artaxis.org.
