Phillip Thomas

Philip Thomas is a visual artist born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1980. His artworks deal with contemporary concerns of colonialism and post-colonial conflicts.  Occasionally utilising materials like tar and bauxite, he works in the traditional media of oil paintings. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston Jamaica. Later with a grant from the Cobb Family Foundation as well as a scholarship from the C.H.A.S.E fund, he went to the New York Academy of Art to pursue his Master’s degree. 

His work critically engages with the question of the social identity of Jamaican people, pointing out the position of the middle classes, their representation and their relationship with the rest of society. Exposing the problematics of multi-culturalism, his works portray Jamaican culture, overlooking the issues of xenophobia. 

The imagery in Philip’s paintings is a narrative mixture of references from works of old masters and contemporary textures and patterns. These juxtapositions help the artist articulate the complex concerns of the present with the burden of the colonial past, especially for the artist’s native Caribbean. The paintings do not attempt to blend the different imageries and materials used, rather it keeps them intact so that the hybridity can be identified and experienced. Elements of paintings from French academies i.e oil media, toreadors in elaborate costumes, silhouette portraits and staged arrangements address the colonial past and post-colonial present with the colour patches and patterns put together to convey the cross-cultural conversations.

Philip Thomas lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica.