Artist Profile

Elizabeth Thomson

Born 1955
 

Elizabeth Thomson travelled extensively before enrolling at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 1982. She studied printmaking while at the same time pursuing her interest in sculpture. She was recipient of the Elam Scholarship in 1985, the Joe Raynes Scholarship and graduated with Master of Fine Arts with First Class Honours in 1988. Thomson received two grants from the Arts Council of New Zealand in 1987, 1989, and in 1998 was awarded the James Wallace Art Award.

'While Thomson's wall-sculptures are meticulous, 'high fidelity' productions, her art also reflects a fascination with the ruptures, disjunctions and absurdities of the natural world – hence the element of science fiction, or 'sci-fi,' which is never far from the surface. On the boundary between two- and three-dimensionality, Elizabeth Thomson's works occupy both wall and airspace. Balancing observation and imagination, organisation and invention, order and adventure, her art is an eloquent exploration of both a state of mind and the state of the world we inhabit.

Meticulous, and audacious, by equal measure, sculptor Elizabeth Thomson's work suggests the role of the artist might also by that of botanist, mathematician, aviator, micro-biologist and teller of tall tales' [Gregory O,Brien].

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