Heidi Thompson: Primal Matter
Lucid Marine (2008)
Acrylics on Paper
30 x 22 inches
Introducing Heidi Thompson, a Canadian painter specializing in imbuing light into textured, abstracted surfaces. Her paintings are saturated with ecstatic vibrancy, evoking the glory of hot, oblique sunsets, summer’s crystalline ponds, scattered fields of wildflowers—all of which culminate to unknowable and unnamable energy that seeps through the skin.
—Yoojin Shin, Editor-in-Chief
“My aim is to capture beauty––not by painting a landscape as I know it with trees, mountains, clouds or sunsets; rather by painting the essence of nature using her elements of color, light, patterns, movement and space. I use nature’s visual elements to express the invisible reality experienced inside me. My aim is to create images that not only reveal my inner reality, but also mirror the light I feel is within me.”
Yellow History (2007)
Acrylics on Paper
30 x 22 inches
Earth Sky Water (2007)
Acrylics on Paper
30 x 22 inches
“It has taken several years to discover painting techniques that, I believe, can express these ideas and feelings. One style I call ‘multicolor’; the other I call “monochrome energy fields”. When successful, these techniques create images that resonate with emotions and trigger subtle physical vibrations. I feel that a work is successful if it instills a feeling of peacefulness and can lift up the viewer. I strive to infuse my compositions with a light. Light has an inexplicable power to move me emotionally.”
A Glorious Awakening (2019)
Acrylics on Canvas
60 x 50 inches
Spring Poetry (2019)
Acrylics on Canvas
60 x 50 inches
Field of Gold (2018)
Acrylics on Canvas
“To create my monochrome energy fields, I use a meticulous technique akin to mandala sand painting. I dip a small fan brush into paint and tap it against a stick to create delicate dots, lines and splatters. For hours, I tap until the textured canvas is covered with layers of these marks. The resulting image is vibrating tapestry; an energized labyrinth of patterns. I sometimes paint a dark vignette around this vibrating field to contain its movement. From a distance the monochromes appear orderly and unified. Yet up close, they reveal chaotic patterns and particles moving in all directions like matter spinning in space.”
Breathing Stillness (2020)
Acrylics on Canvas
“The monochromes express my molecular reality that manifests as bodily sensations pulsating, throbbing, prickling, tingling, and manifesting inside me. They express unity of the universe––that we are one existing in a field of energy. My hope is that while the viewer gazes at these fields of vibrating color, he or she will become aware of sensations; become aware of their own reality manifesting, changing and dissolving.”
Field of Green (2020)
Acrylics on Canvas
Heidi Thompson is a Canadian painter. After graduating high school in 1974, she moved to Switzerland to work as an Au Pair—a live-in family helper—and discovered her love for art by painting in her spare time. She studied in Switzerland, Germany, and Hungary before returning to her home town in 1982; ever since then, she has worked as a photographer, publisher, teacher, and painter. Now, she paints full-time and exhibits her work in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Follow her along on her website and Instagram.