Henderson, Ky., artist Chris Thomas’ small painting of a silvery-shelled nautilus arranged against a luxurious piece of blue silken fabric is striking. As in many of Thomas’ paintings, “Blue Nautilus” shows a concise mastery of composition and detail, reflecting the smallest beauty through controlled but organic brushstrokes, a sense of intense depth, and rich, glowing color. In fact, the work is so lush and evocative that it reminds a person of a Velvet Elvis painting.
Well, at least one person. A comparison to the Velvet Elvis genre — the King rendered in paint upon black velvet — isn’t quite what Thomas expected to hear when he showed the painting to his high-school sweetheart and wife of 13 years, Shakira. But it’s exactly the comparison she offered. “Well, sometimes she’s wrong,” he laughs.
He quickly notes that Shakira is generally a superb critic, and she liked “Blue Nautilus” much better once it was framed and hanging in the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco –– one of the premier academic realist galleries in the United States. In October, a major exhibit featuring Thomas’ work opened at the gallery to an appreciative crowd of collectors and patrons.
It’s a long way from a makeshift painting studio in a garage in Henderson, Ky., where Thomas, 38, began his painting career in the early 1990s, to San Francisco’s largest gallery. Though he’s blessed with both luck and talent, Thomas followed a focused, determined path to where he now finds himself: selling his work in galleries around the country, supporting his family with his art, and sharing his hard-earned knowledge of drawing and painting with his students as the founder of The Art Academy in Henderson.
Although Thomas was voted “Most Likely to Be An Artist” in kindergarten, he insists, “People didn’t look at my drawings and think ‘prodigy.’” In high school, he took every art class available, yet his art and drawing remained only a hobby “because,” as he notes with a half-smile, “everyone knows you can’t make a living as an artist unless you teach. And I didn’t want to teach.” He took a year of classes at Henderson Community College, but the general education courses and long lectures bored him. He quit school, worked odd jobs, continued painting, and entered regional juried shows.
In 1992 –– when he was 22 –– Thomas’ talent and efforts first converged with opportunity, when Curt Nance, owner and curator of Nance Galleries in Evansville, invited Thomas to sell his work through Nance Galleries after he chose one of Thomas’ paintings as “best of show” in a local juried exhibit. The conversation was a watershed for Thomas, who began believing he could someday make real money with his art. Not long afterward, when another established artist assured Thomas his artistic abilities were exceptional, Thomas knew he was ready to work full-time at his art. “I decided then,” Thomas recalls, “to just be an artist.”
A month later, Thomas arrived in New York City for a brief summer session at the Art Students League, where he immersed himself in art and the intensive study of figure drawing and composition. The venerable art school, formed in 1875, counts stalwarts of the art world such as Thomas Hart Benton, Alexander Calder, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, and Mark Rothko among its past students, lecturers, and instructors.
Back home in Henderson later that year, he converted his parents’ garage into a painting studio, where he pored over painting books and emulated the techniques of 19th century painters William Bouguereau and John Singer Sargent as well as renowned Swedish artist Anders Zorn. “I would paint what I could at the best level I could,” says Thomas, “and I just tried to make it better all the time.”
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Within three years of beginning this rigorous self-direction, Thomas’ own style and techniques began to emerge. After attending the Art Students League, he converted from watercolor to oil: “Oil is more forgiving than watercolor — though I wouldn’t say easier,” says Thomas. In this period, he began practicing a process he still follows today: He begins with sight-size drawings of his compositions, the foundations upon which the painting is built. Sight-size method is a visual measuring approach ensuring accurate proportions and perspective, both key to achieving the kind of trompe l’oeil –– French for “trick of the eye” –– realism for which his work is known. The painting itself begins with a traditional underpainting, then Thomas begins building the appearance of light and mass with confident layers of paint. Details are added last, and he’s learned not to paint what he calls “every stitch.” “I’ve become much more economical with my brushstrokes,” says Thomas. “My paintings can read as very detailed, even when they’re not.”
In this period, his painting became more prolific and profitable, as his works began selling well — “for good amounts of money,” he humbly notes. The sales enabled him to become the sole breadwinner for his new family: He and Shakira were married in 1995. By 2000, Nance Galleries represented him as well as galleries in Indianapolis and Cincinnati, and that year, the couple’s son Aaron was born. In 2004 –– after Thomas won an award at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science’s 52nd Mid-States Art Exhibition — his work was brought to the attention of John Pence, owner and curator of the John Pence Gallery. Pence invited Thomas to participate in several group shows at his gallery; impressed with what he saw, he encouraged Thomas to assemble a show to introduce his work to a local and national audience. The result is the October exhibition of 30 pieces of Thomas’ work, introduced with an article in the October issue of the prestigious American Art Collector magazine.
As Pence notes, Thomas is “especially good at subject matter, coloration, the use of light, unique compositions as well as design and proportion.” These gifts are evident in pieces such as “Peonies in Crimson,” “Avocado,” and “Summertime.” Each is painstakingly composed and elegantly rendered in rich colors and textures, displaying Thomas’ able and precise handling of paint.
But Thomas also offers darkly whimsical commentary through elaborate, dramatically lit setups and clever titles. “Sometimes I think realism can be almost too ‘sweet,’” explains Thomas. “So I like to look for the visual pun.” He’s spent countless hours through the years scouring antique stores and thrift stores for unusual props to combine in his tableaus. In works such as “Going Bananas,” “Afterhours,” and “Pucker Up,” Thomas creates subtle, tongue-in-cheek narratives: a cymbal-banging monkey toy balanced atop a bunch of vividly yellow bananas, a cadre of vintage toys cavorting among miniature bottles of liquor, a bowl of luscious lemons and limes punctuated with an open tube of red lipstick. “His sense of humor,” says Pence, “is marvelous.”
Pence predicts greater success for Thomas in years to come, but for now, Thomas’ life as a working artist has brought him full-circle: Once a young artist who didn’t want to teach, Thomas now understands the importance of good instruction. Although he’s proof that art can be self-taught, he admits now, “Looking back, I would have been better off with more formal study.”
This one minor regret was the impetus for Thomas to open The Art Academy (www.theartacademy.org) in 2005, a drawing and painting school located in downtown Henderson. At The Art Academy, beginners, aspiring professional artists, and hobbyists alike receive attentive individual training from Thomas in a group setting. Among his students is Beth Storms, who studied fine art and painting more than 40 years ago. She was lured to The Art Academy when she was in Wellington’s Frame Shop and noticed the unassuming artist creating extraordinary work in a small studio next door. “I was overwhelmed by his work, and it reminded me of Jesus saying, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’” Storms recalls. “I realized I was a snob regarding painting and had no idea that quietly in Henderson worked a young man with all the ability of many well recognized artists.”
Then there is John Israel, a retired Evansville businessman who put down the brush 30 years ago to pursue a career in construction and who has returned to painting after selling his interest in the business earlier this year. Israel has become Thomas’ first full-time student with a larger individual workspace and access to the studio — and Thomas — five days a week. “Chris Thomas deserves all of our support, and especially mine, because I see him achieving something I would have liked to accomplish over 30 years ago,” says Israel. “But it’s never too late to catch a dream.”
