David M Thomas
Shapes We Haven’t Seen Before

David M Thomas is an artist who makes deeply personal works that relay an openness to the possibilities and resonances around him. Physical and psychic experiences inform his paintings and drawings, which are created through observation and automatic processes, producing enigmatic abstract works. Shapes We Haven’t Seen Before gives form to ideas, energies, and associations that are both visible and invisible.

Thomas is currently part of the Artspace One Year Studio Program. His studio with its magnificent, yet malevolent view on to Sydney Harbour – framed as it is by naval warships and speculative real estate developments – plays an integral part in the creation of the banners for this commission. The shared practice he began with Suzanne Howard before her physical passing in 2018, also informs the work and guides his artistic process. These influences, combined with practices like séance rituals draw life from other dimensions and points of perception, revealing lively forms that weave together material and immaterial relations, thoughts and spaces.

Originally made directly onto canvas drop sheets found on Bland Street, behind Artspace, Thomas began the process of transforming these objects into paintings and continued to evolve them for this large-scale Banner Series. He incorporated the black spray-painted forms and curious stencilled figures already on them. These ambiguous dramatic shapes are then entwined with the new mystic forms he projects onto them. Shapes We Haven’t Seen Before is a dance between found objects, gestures, projected shapes and imagined spirit realms.