Christian THOMAS
Christian Thomas is a French sculptor-painter, born April 10, 1947, in Paris.
Abundant and heterogeneous artist, approaching free figuration, he is particularly influenced by Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Dubuffet, Giacometti, Henri Moor, African arts. He also claims a kinship with raw art, which he particularly likes.
The richness of the materials he uses to create testifies to his diversity:
* bronze, earth, plaster and plastic for his sculptures,
* paper, acrylic paint, oil, water-based paint, tipex and shoe polish for his paintings.
His sculptures frequently symbolize the bodies of men and women with stretched and disproportionate forms, in standing, sitting and lying positions, surmounted by tiny and often faceless heads. He also sculpts what he calls himself "faces", which are sorts of hybrid faces on the border between man and monster, and which he sometimes paints with bright or dark colors. His plastic sculptures freely represent faces, beings, ideas.
His pictorial work is very rich: frescoes, abstract shapes, women's bodies with strange and original silhouettes.
Personal concepts
Christian Thomas is also the inventor of several innovative concepts:
* “Art/Fax” paintings: the artist introduces a drawing into a fax machine which he starts up. As the fax swallows the drawing, the artist holds the paper to speed up or slow down the scrolling. At the end of this manipulation, a drawing that no longer has anything to do with the original comes out of the machine. He frequently uses thermal paper, which has the particularity of destroying itself over time.
* “drink-art”: the artist takes empty cans which he crushes, models and paints to create abstract shapes, most often faces.
* “toilet-art”: the artist fills and paints empty toilet paper rolls to represent heads.
Christian Thomas has also distinguished himself in the creation of wine labels. He “dressed” bottles of Bourgeuil for the 1995, 1996 and 1999 vintages.
