Through the Day brings together four wall mounted sculptures, a neon text work, a kinetic Sculpture and two studies on paper. All of the works deal loosely with notions of time, memory, experience, and an investigation into the use of what detritus might be left behind from an experience, occurrence or working method.
Endless Summer (2024) consists of a ceiling fan that hangs low above a circular table. The underside of the fan blades have been adorned with very thin gold chains and jewellery lettering which spell out an endlessly looping poem, it reads,
_'late morning which moved _
_softly into long nights _
which became more'
This kinetic poem is accompanied by its' sonic counterpart, as the letters caress the necks of the bottles and the rim of the glasses that litter the table below it.
Small wall-based sculptures from Thomas' series In the Rearview (2023 - ongoing) are also presented, they consist of car rear-view mirrors which are adorned with hanging assemblages made from cut fragments that Thomas has collected in the studio. The small poetic works encourage us to think about what we leave behind as our vehicles (quite literally) eat up the ground, what is left for those others coming along the road behind us and what it is that we carry with us. Despite this, it should be acknowledged that like all good metaphors, the works remain open-ended and subject to new and varied readings. Alongside these works are two framed studies, which reveal something of Thomas' working process, and reveals the importance of writing and word-play as a means to arrive, down the line, at a more sculptural resolution.
The neon work, Time is Money and Money and is Power (2024) is only the second neon work that Thomas has made, and it is the first bilingual work that he has exhibited. It consists of a "broken" sign which is advertising diamonds, but which now seems to be exclaiming the words "DÍAS" (days) and "DIOS" (gods). Shop signage is a recurrent motif in Thomas' work, which he sees as a rich playground in which the visual , the sculptural and the written come together.
The works in Through the Day express concerns about our collective future, whilst retaining a measured degree of hope as to the possibility of positive outcomes, even when the odds are stacked against us, or against the planet.