Jeremy Thomas

Jeremy Thomas (b. 1973, Mount Vernon, Oklahoma, USA) is an American sculptor with an international reputation for his exceptionally inventive formal "inflatable" metal sculptures. He lives and works in Española, New Mexico, where he has been pursuing research at the crossroads of science, art and matter for over two decades. A BFA graduate from the College of Santa Fe (1996), he trained with master blacksmith and MacArthur Grant winner Tom Joyce (1995), after discovering intaglio engraving alongside abstract artist Jean Richardson in Oklahoma City. This double filiation, between rigorous craftsmanship and plastic freedom, nourishes a singular body of work in which sculpture becomes a balancing act between control and accident. Thomas' aesthetic universe is inspired by the industrial and mechanical world: agricultural machinery, muscle car bodies, tools and cosmetics nourish his powerful, sensual forms, covered in brightly colored powders or natural rust patinas. Her sculptures, at once hard and soft, geometric and organic, embody the meeting of opposites - between the planned and the spontaneous, the masculine and the feminine. Refusing the status of "artist", Thomas defines himself above all as a maker of objects, seeing creation as a pragmatic and playful act: "Art is the science of play", he asserts, claiming an instinctive approach nourished by daily life rather than art history. His work can be found in major public and museum collections, including the Albright-Knox Gallery (Buffalo), the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts (Santa Fe), the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (Arizona) and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum (Malibu). He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Phoenix Airport Museum (Airborne, 2019), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Kunsthalle Wiesbaden (Germany, 2016) and Museum Wilhelm Morgner (Soest, Germany). Represented by several major galleries in the United States and Europe - Charlotte Jackson Fine Art (Santa Fe), Bentley Gallery (Phoenix), Galerie Richard (Paris and New York) and Galerie Renate Bender (Munich) - Jeremy Thomas has established himself as one of the most original figures in contemporary American sculpture, transforming metal into a living, poetic material.