HEIDI THOMPSON
Trained across Europe and rooted in British Columbia, Thompson creates radiant fields of color
that pulse with energy and emotion, immersive compositions where light, rhythm, and vibration
evoke a sense of presence, wonder, and quiet transformation
(read full bio)
ARTIST BIO
Heidi Thompson (b. 1956, Vernon, BC, Canada) is a Canadian painter. After graduating from high school, she moved to Europe to study art. From 1975-1979 she attended the University of Art & Design in Zürich, earning a Swiss Diploma for Professional Photography. Her photographs can be found in the archives of the Kunstgewerbeschule. After graduating, Thompson moved to Nürnberg and apprenticed with German painter Oskar Koller for a year. Koller recommended that she continue her art education at the Akademie der Buildene Künste. Thompson was accepted into the academy and spent a year painting and drawing under the guidance of Ernst Weil. Seeking a more traditional art school, Thompson moved to Budapest and studied painting with Professor Kokas Ignac at the Hungarian State University for Fine Art. In 1982 she returned to Canada and married Edward Thompson. Along with her painting and exhibiting throughout North America and Europe, Thompson has worked as a photographer and publisher. She is based in Coldstream, BC.
ABOUT THE WORK
Thompson’s paintings reflect the emotions evoked by qualities of light — tree-trunks in the afternoon sun; phosphorescent particles glowing amidst the ocean’s waves — brought into color. Her work is in the line of American Color Field painting, with particular affinities to the veil and pour techniques of Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler. In the multicolor series, chromatic bands are arranged vertically, often with the brightest one in the middle, to give the viewer a sense of hope and wholeness, like light emerging from the end of a tunnel. The splattering and dripping technique she uses gives her canvases a three-dimensional quality rarely achieved through flat application alone. By further dispersing the acrylic with liquids and heat, she gives her pieces the material sense of magma sprayed out from a volcanic eruption. Flecked beads of paint fuse and merge in fields of color, spreading throughout one’s vision like vibrations rung from a humming gong.
ARTIST STATEMENT
For me, art is about energy - hopefully positive, healing energy. As my work reflects my own emotional state, positive is not always achievable. I've experienced that a painting's color, light, quality, marks, and patterns vibrate together and resonate with my heart and mind. I feel a flow of subtle sensations. The longer I gaze the more I notice a change inside— the image is influencing my mind— calming me down or soothing pain.
PRESENTED AT ARCO GALLERY
Thematic focus: Abstract Art
You're welcome to reach out for additional works, context, or conversation around Heidi Thompson's practice.