Augustus Thompson

Flower Ticking and Three Shades 2014

UltraChrome on canvas

74.0 x 41.0 in

Augustus Thompson was born in 1985 in Richlands, Virginia and lives and works in Los Angeles. He received a BFA from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2008. His recent works revolve around his surrounding environment, drawing inspiration from the industrial design and municipal signage of LA. 

The artist has featured in solo exhibitions titled Hold Tight at Ed Varie in New York and Cold Boy’s Fire/ Digital Physical at Adobe in San Francisco. He has also participated in a two-person exhibition with Chris Lux at New Image, Los Angeles in 2012. Selected group exhibitions include his presence at the Contemporary Arts Centre at the Paule Anglim Gallery in San Francisco, in Let’s Go Bombing Tonight at the V1 in Copenhagen and at the San Francisco Fine Art Fair. 

Thompson incorporates the everyday experience into his work. By creating a visual language out of commonplace forms and symbols he explores ‘the limits of representational painting while celebrating the potential of a metaphysical practice’. His works are often created in pairs to emphasise their interactive, comparative and collective qualities. He is interested in the notion of perspective and the concept of space, experimenting with both in his installations and canvas works. His work is based on the existence of paradox: contrasting reductive and additive processes, colour and monochrome, flatness and dimensionality and emptiness and space, he challenges and captivates the viewer. He sees art as a personal, beneficial endeavour: finding pleasure in his graffiti work as well as his exhibited pieces, his passion for the creative process is undeniable and highly apparent in both.