Our third Q&A with Studio Fridays artists is with abstract colourist Celestine Thomas, who many of you may also know as a teacher of art at Insight School of Art too.

To see more of Celestine Thomas’s work, head over to the Studio Fridays website and to her Instagram page.

What artwork by another artist do you wish you had made? 

Infinity Mirror Room by Yayoi Kusama. The installation itself is something so simple and yet so powerful and unique. I am very excited to see her work at the Tate this year!

What are you working on at the moment?

As an artist I select colours and combinations of colours from recycled materials, and arrange them into 2D and 3D abstract compositions exploring shape and texture. At the moment I am working on a series of artists books. I find this an interesting way to collect and document all the materials I find attractive. I am currently using a concertina layout for my books which allows me to constantly change the composition. I can either work on a section of the book or all aspects at once. If one section needs to dry or I’m ‘stuck’, I can leave it and focus on another section or change the page arrangement and get inspiration from another section. By creating works in this way I get ideas for bigger pieces, or sometimes I present the pages as works in themselves. I am also fascinated by the possibilities of making them into 3D pieces. There’s so much to explore!

Describe your work in five words.

Colourful
Fun
Unguarded
Guileless
Lawless

Where do you find inspiration for your art? 

Colour. Every day we experience colour. In everything we do. Artists and non-artist alike. Colour is an individual experience, so the way we experience colour is different to the next person. Such factors as light, cultural background, language, context, time of day, will all define the experience we have with it. We are unique individual human beings and our eyes see differently.

I also teach art to children and I am fascinated by the colours that young children choose to use and definitely feel that they influence in my work.

What art training have you had? 

Studying art has always been important to me. I was a student at Insight School of Art through my childhood and then studied on Foundation and Degree courses at Middlesex University. I’m now a member of Studio Fridays and teach at Insight School of Art which allows me to keep developing my practice and keep learning.

Artwork by Celestine Thomas