Lex Thomas (b. 1972 London) read Sociology at the University of Greenwich then studied Fine Art for three years at the University of the West of England and subsequently gained a Postgraduate Diploma at Chelsea College of Art. Since then she has exhibited in Europe and the States and widely throughout the UK including at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, the Princes Foundation Gallery, the Mall Galleries and Orleans House Gallery.
Solo exhibitions have been Of Truth of Clouds, South Hill Park Arts Centre, Berkshire (2013) and Future Proof, Opus Gallery, Newcastle (2011). She has been shortlisted for the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, the Rising Stars Prize and won third place in the Woolgather Art Prize. Her work is held in private collections in the UK, USA and Germany as well as the Cill Rialaig Arts Collection, Ireland. She will be beginning a Masters Degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art in the autumn.
Lex Thomas’ primary concern is the idea of belief. The artists’ book In Search of an Author is a collection of 62 fluidly drawn ink vignettes, individual drawings in their own right, but interlinked by the subject of belief and the stories we tell ourselves. Unexplained natural phenomena such as the supernatural and paranormal are examined, as well as magic, cults and UFO religions. The effect is a non-textual, fragmentary narrative echoing the idea that ‘truth is in the eye of the beholder’. The title acknowledges the playwright Pirandello, credited with breaking through the ‘fourth wall’ with his creation of Mirror Theatre.
