Estelle Thompson is a British abstract painter who lives and works in London and Barbados. In this talk, she looked at her use of light and color in painting and built environment public commissions. As an artist, curator, educator, and designer, Thompson has always considered color as fundamental to all aspects of our lives. She celebrates its environmental function and positive power for humanity. She passionately explores color, form, space, and geography to extend the history of abstraction, optics, and contemporary aesthetics. She also considered the overlap of studio practice research, so key to her large-scale public commissions, such as Milton Keynes Theatre, Quaglino’s restaurant in London, and various hospital and university buildings across the United Kingdom. Thompson touched on artistic freedom and social responsibility, the nuts and bolts of commissioning, and the ethics of working as an artist both in the private or public sphere. She also shared how she spent two years living and working in Barbados during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the island’s location and environment further influenced her practice and philosophy.
Michael Scott, director of the Future of the Humanities Project, provided opening and closing remarks, and Kathryn Temple, a Future of the Humanities Project senior fellow, moderated a Q&A session following the presentation.
This event was sponsored by the Future of the Humanities Project; the Georgetown Humanities Initiative; the Georgetown Master's Program in the Engaged and Public Humanities; Campion Hall, Oxford; and the Las Casas Institute (Blackfriars Hall, Oxford). It is part of the one-year-long series A Bent but Beautiful World: Literature, Art, and the Environment.
Image courtesy of the artist: Estelle Thompson, Green Flash 2020-2021 (detail), Oil on panel 41 x 31 cm.
