Venus Thomas

Venus Thomas

[BFA] Studio Art – Drawing

My watercolors incorporate handmade Alençon lace into the finished pieces. My subjects are typically the human figure, flora, fauna, and statuary, so that I may evoke the repetition of the geological timeline and where we as humans exist within our pocket of time.  

I have always been drawn to the natural processes of the earth and human interactions with that timeline: The movement of tectonic plates, the evolution of animals and plants, and the extinction events that have led to this moment in time that humans exist. I am also interested in how human culture and society mirrors the way that earth repeats.  

I am drawn to watercolor, the antiquity of the material speaks to me as well as the speed, reminding me of the brief stamp of humans on earth’s timeline. The palette that I use is made up of earthen primaries that reference to nature and earth itself. I use lace as a juxtaposition to the speed and ferocity of the watercolor, which reminds me of the slow and methodical flow of time.  

I hope to create work that invites the viewer to reconceptualize time. Through my choice of subjects, which are taken from a relatively recent timeframe, i.e. subjects that are in their current state in the time of humans. My eventual goal is that the viewer recognizes these works as being both in and outside of time.  

Venus Thomas is completing a BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in drawing degree at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln after transferring from Peru State College in 2021. Through the application of watercolor and handmade Alençon needle lace she explores the complexity and repetition of geological time and how humans exist and reflect the timeline. Thomas’s work has been exhibited in the Peru State Art Gallery in 2021, the Noyes Art Gallery in 2022 and 2023, as well as the Contemplation exhibition at the Medici Gallery in 2024, and will be shown in the Studio Capstone exhibition at the Eisentrager-Howard gallery in 2024.   

@venusthomas.art