Louis Thompson

1966, United Kingdom

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Accomplished glass artist Louis Thompson explores illusion and the perceptions of glass, fascinated by the haptic experience in art and sculpture. He works with molten glass, sometimes sabotaging the material: twisting, creasing, buckling and collapsing the glass. The works have underlying themes of the human body; sensuous, tactile, echoing folds, curves and creases. With simplicity and purity of materials, he plays with the viewers’ comprehension of what is put before them, often creating collections of objects where the dialogue and relationship between each element is as essential as the collective composition.

In his own words;

‘My work is concerned with ideas of repetition, sequence and multiples. This stems from a fascination with the idea of collections: multiples that record and archive history from medical apparatus to the scientific aesthetic of research and inquiry. My glass works examine material volume, weight, and ambiguity, are they solid or liquid, full or empty? My pieces pose questions about the material and the idea of function, playing with the viewers’ perception to examine what is real and not real.’

Thompson has exhibited extensively in the UK, Europe, USA and Japan. In 2012 Thompson received two prestigious awards in the UK: British Glass Biennale Winner and the Jerwood Foundation Makers Commission. He has been invited to create installations for various museums and international exhibitions and his work is held in permanent museum collections in Belgium, Germany, Japan, Czech Republic, the USA and the V&A Museum in London. Thompson has completed International residencies at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, The Glazenhuis Museum in Belgium and most recently at Soneva Art Glass in the Maldives.