About the Artist

Annie Thompson is a painter and drawer who lives in Gainesville, FL. She received her BFA degree and was presented the Academic Achievement in Visual and Performing Arts award from Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL, in 2019. She completed two independent studies focused on oil painting and figure studies under artists Sara Pedigo and Patrick Moser during her studies. Thompson was additionally influenced heavily during her studies in relief printmaking under artist Donald Martin. Currently, Thompson works in art administration as a Cultural Arts Coordinator for a municipality where she collaborates with artists to coordinate public exhibitions and art events. By dedicating much time to facilitating other artists in promoting their careers, she is driven to do the same for her artistic practice.

Thompson has professional experience as a freelance artist, completing portrait, landscape, and mural commissions. Most important is her growing practice within her home studio. Throughout her life, she has been fascinated by figurative works. She was naturally drawn to oil painting with the significant influence of her uncle Barry Graves, who was an oil painter focusing on both formal portraiture and surrealism. During her undergraduate studies, she was also compelled by charcoal drawing. Currently, both mediums aid her in bringing her artistic ideas to fruition.

In Thompson’s body of work, significant themes of solitude, idealism, and melancholy exist. Assessing her current mentality has been a consistent component of her work. By creating self-portraits and compositions of people and objects that are personally significant, her work aims to preserve and protect memories and fleeting emotions.

About Artist’s Work:

My current portfolio is a catalog of drawings and paintings of self-portraits that aim to romanticize pipe dream feelings. I explore self-reflection and the battle between reality and imagination by creating formal and gestural studies of figures, abstract patterns, and still lifes in oil and charcoal. As a young adult entering the workforce, these self-portraits are a meta attempt to assess how I view myself while everyday life rejects this internal persona.

Moving beyond creating portraits in my likeness, I explore what meta artwork can be by illustrating toy dragon figurines and a pattern derived from these figures. Through various historical contexts that these mythological creatures have belonged to, I have recontextualized dragons to represent my imagined self, conveying a lost playful, badass, and mysterious sense of self. I am drawn to their lonesome, ferocious, and protective nature. As a dragon protects its treasure, this body of work represents the protection of self.

As I address my current reality in conjunction with internal feelings of rebellion, security, badassery, melancholy, and skepticism, this body of work is an open dialogue about growing up.

What does “Home” mean to you: 

Home is where you feel most comfortable and restored. It’s a place where you can be extremely loud or peacefully quiet. Ultimately, I connect home to where you are off display, giving you room to be yourself. With this comes the opportunity to indulge your imagination. I have been creating work within my home studio for the past couple of years, benefitting from the surrounding comfort and necessary seclusion to quiet the world around and bring noise to my easel.

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