Charlie Godet Thomas is a British-Bermudian artist whose work employs a wide range of approaches including writing, painting, sculpture, assemblage, photography, sound and video. His work is concerned with the connections between visual art and literature, the act of writing, the autobiographical, the tragic and the humorous.
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Charlie Godet Thomas' practice is multifaceted in its approach - spanning sculpture, installation, painting, sound, video, performative readings and writing. His work sits between written and visual languages, and is recognisable from his distinctive hand-written font, which is a predominant visual signature of his practice.
Thomas' painted works bridge the stylistic qualities of newspaper cartoon strips with a more Blakean approach to pairing writing and imagery. These vary in scale and often take on a sculptural aspect either through cuts, folds, and glued or taped "corrections" and/or embellished with other elements such as lighting fixtures. His offcuts from these works, and from his poems that are painted on newsprint, are often incorporated into further works. His ongoing ‘Fix’ series of works are a good example of this strategy, whereby offcuts are held in stasis using transparent cast rubber which has been poured into boxes which once held light-sensitive photographic paper.
Thomas’ work spans subjects too, the total of which pose questions about the porosity of the inside and outside, self and non-self, the personal and the general, as well as ideas around individual and collective responsibility, especially as it pertains to the natural world and environmental crisis.
Thomas refers to his work as a kind of endless script that is constantly being reworked - which moves between mediums, the gallery space and beyond, into outdoor space and cities - one in which he voices a series of shifting but interrelated worries about how we sometimes behave, and how we might do better.
Charlie Godet Thomas (b.1985, London, UK. British/Bermudian) currently lives and works between Mexico City, MX and Essex, UK. He studied a BA in Fine Art (Sculpture) at Manchester School of Art (2009) and an MA in Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Royal College of Art, London (2014), where he was awarded the Bermuda Arts Council Scholarship and the Peter Leitner Scholarship. Past residencies include: Fundación Casa Wabi (2023); Caribbean Linked IV at Ateliers ’89 in Oranjestad, Aruba (2016); Tarrant County College, Fort Worth, Texas, US (2017); and Atelier Mondial, Basel, CH (2017).
Thomas has been exhibited internationally at galleries, institutions, and biennials including: Museo Jumex, Mexico City, MX; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK; Somerset House, London, UK; 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014 and 2012 Bermuda Biennial, The Bermuda National Gallery, BM; Espacio Union, Mexico City, MX; Ladrón galería, Mexico City, MX; Carillon Gallery, Texas, US; VITRINE Basel, CH and London, UK; Assembly Point, London, UK; N.A.S.A.L., Mexico City, MX; JO-HS, Mexico City, MX; Nicoletti Contemporary, London, UK; Paradise Works, Manchester, UK; Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK; Cactus, Liverpool, UK; Home-Platform, Bristol, UK; Telfer Gallery, Glasgow, UK; RCA/ ECA Edinburgh Sculpture Court, Edinburgh, UK; Vernacular Institute, Mexico City, MX; Colector, Monterrey, MX; Ballon Rouge, Brussels, BE; Standpoint Gallery, London, UK; TACO!, London, UK.
Art fairs include: Salón ACME 2024, Mexico City, MX; Material Vol.7, Mexico City, MX; Frieze Sculpture 2019, London, UK; POPPOSITIONS 2018, Brussels, BE; The Manchester Contemporary, Manchester, UK. He was commissioned for SCULPTURE AT Bermondsey Square, London in 2017.
Current/forthcoming exhibitions include The 2024 Bermuda Biennial, Bermuda National Gallery, Hamilton, BM; and a solo show 'Little Sound' at VITRINE Fitzrovia (June 2024).
Nadim Abbas, Nicole Bachmann, Edwin Burdis, Kara Chin, Anaïs Comer, Tim Etchells, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Ludovica Gioscia, Katrin Hanusch, Candice Jacobs, Sophie Jung, Rene Matić, Campbell McConnell, Paula Pinho Martins Nacif, Milly Peck, Sam Porritt, Ralph Pritchard, Natasha Rees, Bioni Samp, James Stopforth, and Charlie Godet Thomas.
