Elena Thomas

Elena Thomas’ practice considers how people touch each other’s lives, physically and emotionally. She is an avid people-watcher and eavesdropper. These connections can be lifelong, or fleeting: conscious or unconscious. Her materials stand as metaphor for this: sometimes they combine well, sometimes they resist. Drawings are often large scale, sinuous, abstract pieces, worked with ink, watercolour, graphite and collaged text. They show evidence of a lifetime of observational drawings of the natural world, and a propensity for idle imagining.

The sound pieces are collaborations with the visual. The lyrics provide a narrative, and manipulated recordings of the drawing process influence melody and rhythm. The resulting soundscape impacts future drawings, writings and performance.

Elena has a Masters Degree in Arts Practice and Education from Birmingham City University’s School of Art, and is an Associate of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists where she was the first artist to have submitted sound work for her candidacy.

Her visual works, sound and performances have been exhibited across the UK, in the USA and Sweden.

‘Drawing Songs’, is her secondArts Council England funded project connecting her songwriting and singing to her drawing.