Thomas Langley (b. 1986, London, UK) is a visual artist currently based in Lisbon, Portugal, while living and working between Lisbon and London.
Langley works within an interdisciplinary practice that includes painting, sculpture, drawing and installation. Through a lens that is often self-referential he is keen to explore universal themes in the human and artistic condition and the concept of what he describes as material thought, how consciousness makes its way into an object or a work of art. Born into a family of basket makers he has an affinity with traditional craft practices and the natural world both as a source of inspiration and raw material. Always seeking new territories for artistic comment, he tends to work in series with the works functioning as modular components of a wider narrative or sentiment.
Always seeking new territories for artistic comment, Langley tends to work in series with the works functioning as modular components of a wider narrative or sentiment. Using a mix of charcoal (a bodging by-product), wax and oil paint, he creates bold, monochromatic works derived from observing plant life, resulting in a loose yet dynamic botanical abstraction. In his work, the natural world emerges as a protagonist but, in reality, the imagery is inseparable from the material, the intention and the act of creation itself. The artist’s hand is very much present as he creates raw, bold rhythmic compositions that function almost as language, conveying simultaneously the urgency of a call and the softness of a whisper.
Langley’s entangled, expressive, undulating lines and the texture of the painted elements imbue the works with an energy that renders them more than a representation of botanical forms but an expression of a state of being.
