VISUAL

NOVEMBER 2016: ALICE THOMAS

This series, River Rooms, is a documentary: a biography of planetary life.

I wanted to paint the river to appear like a photograph on the cover of TIME: like one we’ve seen showing an innocent child running from war and every other insult on this earth, all tattered, struck by reality.

The river, too, is a life. It ribbons across the land, brings habitat, sport, and life-supporting refreshment. It’s literally the life-blood of earth: cause of joy, cause of war. Recording this was my purpose, my inspiration.

These paintings are records of various insults against our rivers in folly and/or purposeful assault. The rooms below the surface/the skin of the bodies of water were recorded: deep rooms where things are locked away, out of sight from the surface.

Further, these visuals are mirrors and records of the rooms below our skins, places where no one sees us, places where we hide/lock up our own pain and suffering.

It is my hope that we all wrap our hearts around the river’s waters and our friends to make safe passage an available reality.

Alice Thomas

Alice Thomas is an artist and poet. She lives in western Massachusetts and on Long Island, New York. Her art has been shown in Greenfield, MA, and Manhasset, NY. She reads at various locations in the region and was a winner in the 2014 Poet Seat Contest. Her series, River Rooms, will be on display as a solo exhibition in January–February 2017 in Turners Fall, MA.