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Thomas Stokes III
Thomas Stokes III (b.1997) is a San Antonio based traditional and digital artist. His artistic journey began with drawing from a young age, and after graduating high school he began to take on the medium of painting. Through self-guided learning over the next few years his work content developed into surreal and fragmented portraiture. His works are mirrors, to varying degrees, of himself and how he sees the world around him. Often taking the human face and seeing how he can manipulate it, Thomas incorporates abstraction and biomorphism and blends them within the silhouettes of his broken, reconstructed figures. Pairing muted earthy and textured tones with compliments of vibrant accents, Thomas’ work seeks controlled chaos within the canvas and harmony with the environments that they are placed within.
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Type: Visual Arts: Painter
Artist Style: Visual Art: Figurative
Artist Medium: Acrylic
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
As a painter, my work primarily focuses on the human form and biomorphism. While I describe myself as a figurative painter, I look to both sculpture and abstraction for inspiration when building the forms that make up my figures. Some of those references include artists such as: Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, etc. As I sketch these paintings, I like to start with the faces and then experiment with different silhouettes, some portraying a body while others purely abstract in shape, and work towards a composition that feels harmonious to me. Working with acrylics allows me to quickly experiment with visual texture due to its fast drying time. Because of this, most of my painting process is with the canvas laying flat on the floor as I apply numerous washes of paint and other mediums to create varying effects. I never know exactly how the washes will turn out but that is part of what makes my process of painting so enjoyable for me: embracing what in the moment can feel like a "mistake" and trying to build off of it.