In the Studio: Neale Thomas

This month dot-art speaks to artist Neale Thomas.

Neale Thomas, born in Liverpool, in 1969, has crafted an artistic journey that spans the realms of illustration and fine art in two different countries. Having honed his skills through a two-year Art and Design foundation course at Hugh Baird College, Bootle he went on to Kingston Polytechnic, London, and gained a BA (Hons) in Illustration. An Art & Design PGCE from the Institute of Education, University of London, has enabled Neale to maintain a dedication to both practice and pedagogy over many years.
For almost two decades, Neale Thomas carved a niche for himself in the realm of freelance illustration, leaving his creative imprint on numerous magazines and national newspapers in the UK and in Sweden where Neale has resided for 25 years. As a keen classic car enthusiast artistic inspiration shifted whilst living in Sweden and guided him toward a new chapter focused on capturing the golden era of motor racing.

Having resided in Sweden with his wife and four children, Neale Thomas still finds inspiration driving his old British cars around the beautiful landscape surrounding his summer house in Hälsingland and Stockholm, the city he made his home for 10 years. His nomadic spirit has always brought him back to England, where the roots of his artistic evolution began. Since returning to the UK Neale continues and seeks to develop his artistic activity within the rich vibrancy of his native city Liverpool.
Neale’s oil paintings echo the passion for and nostalgia of an era gone by, inviting viewers to embark on a journey through time with each stroke of the brush. The depth, permanence and tactile quality of oil paint is something many artists find appealing. With the process of layering smooth flat areas to create a sense of calm and contemplation Neale reflects a thoughtful approach to his craft. Simplifying elements to a “less is more” philosophy is a powerful way to convey a sense of order and balance in his work. Endeavouring to find unique colour combinations that evoke a personal vision of the past. It’s a way to transport viewers to another time and help them connect with the stories of lives lived during that period.

Can you describe your style of art?

Less is more. When I started out I would ask myself how much of an object or a face do I need to show for the viewer to understand and see what I’ve try to show. It is a reduction technique. Initially I reduce things to solid black and white. Silhouettes are great. When I was an art teacher I used to make slide shows digitally that had hundreds of clip art silhouettes and flash them up on a projector screen in the classroom. I tried to get students to understand that the human eye clocks a huge amount of information from very little. Elvis to Swift, a pigeon to a sparrow, we have the ability to recognise precise shape and form in pure simple black and white.

David Hockney mentions this, get the silhouette right and you’ve nailed it…the details can just be whatever you feel like you’ve enjoyed looking at yourself. It ties in with the fact that one of my first passions was early 20th Century poster art. I thought the use of minimal flat shapes extremely clever and very beautiful.

I still enjoy the British, slightly realist painters of the twenties and thirties, by then out of vogue and a bit unfashionable but nonetheless still informed by cubism and and even surrealism. I’m thinking of people like Dod Proctor, Laura and Harold Knight, Meredith Frampton, Stanley Spencer. Edward Hopper takes my interest across the Atlantic, he invented noir cinema before cinema.

Can you talk us through your process? Do you begin with a sketch, or do you just go straight in? How long do you spend on one piece? How do you know when it is finished?

Naturally, the paintings themselves started as sketches, so I could pull out a sketch and then point to the painting. Because when I started with the desire to paint in oil and obviously had to think what I would paint? It seemed obvious that my subject matter would be a world I’d been obsessed with since my teens. I Iove old vehicles and machines, particularly classic cars.

The historic motorsport scene in England is unmatched internationally. We have the best festivals and events for this in the world. Essentially there is a real commitment at these events to recreating the past…which is central to my interest in picture making and love of old cars.

When I started out I was sitting in my house in Northern Sweden, a long way from all the sources I craved for in my work. Realising that the internet was crammed full of what I was interested in it was my good fortune to discover an awful lot of footage and grainy black and white film, often newsreels of the era. Suddenly I was able to spectate 1950’s formula one races from Aintree in the snowy waste land of 21st century Sweden and importantly not just the race but the crowds and behind the scenes.

I was hooked on stopping film sequences and sketching directly into little A6 spiral bound books. I was filling page after page of strongly poster art influenced black and white drawings that turned out close to the less is more credo in order to get the stuff down quick and move on.

The pages I was drawing instantly became actual work I could sell and provided the raw material for images I could expand and develop into paintings. 

 I have an approach were I look at a painting and figure out everything that I consider unfinished. I then estimate how long to fix those areas. Sometimes I will look at a hand or a face and rationalise that I have literally 20 minutes out of maybe an 8 hour day to dedicate to it. I go to work and stop at precisely 20 minutes. I just have to accept the result. That’s as good as I was on that day and that’s it, move on. 

When did you begin your career in art?

When I left Kingston School of Art in 1991. I was instantly a freelance illustrator the day I left. The college tutors made us students make business cards before we left. I recall saying – but how can I write ‘illustrator’ when I haven’t even been paid for it yet? The idea of actually getting money for your artistic endeavour seemed like a wild fantasy.

The reality of when it happened was suddenly plain and simple. The folder you lugged around with all your best achievements had got you the gig, and then the Art Director asked you to produce something that somehow just didn’t seem to fit or you couldn’t get your head around. Either way you didn’t have weeks to work on it, they wanted it by the end of the week and it was already Wednesday.

The budget would be flashed in front of your suddenly widened eyes and you went home to your bedsit/shared house determined to bend whatever you could create to fit the purpose and hopefully pay the bills. At the end of that rollercoaster they were happy and you’d made a piece of work that had departed from everything you thought you knew about your own work. And that new thing became your work….and often you disliked it, but it was a Job and so it all began….Love Hate.

Who or what inspires your art?

I’ve mentioned some famous painters. I’ve talked about the source material I use. There is a painting in the Walker Art Gallery called ‘Amity’ by a man called Bernard Fleetwood Walker . I often think that I can’t stop painting until I paint something as good as that…and I probably never will.

When I lived in Sweden I’d call in and visit that one. I get so used to looking at my own stuff up close that when I put my nose close to that I draw breath. He’s good, really good. I have so much to learn. It makes me want to go home and start again. Everything about that painting speaks to me.

Why is art and creativity important to you?

Because without it I wouldn’t have understood that there is a place for me in the world.

I didn’t know it was art and creativity when I was a child. I thought I was just keeping myself occupied like every other small person with time to spend on interests and ideas. It was only when the school asked me at age 12 was it going to be Art, Woodwork or German? I had to let my Austrian pen friend in Vienna down, and I’d actually got a carpentry set for Christmas the year before and loved being in our garden shed. But it was Art hands down.

I just loved making pictures for some reason, it was my favourite thing. I had no idea what an arty person was like or should be like. I didn’t know any artists. My dad had a cousin who did watercolours of nature scenes and steam engines but he was a Geology teacher. Happily in school me and a boy in another class were the best at art in our year. We competed with each other. There wasn’t a single other thing at school were I was seen as being someone to be reckoned with by my classmates. Being ‘dead good at art’ saw me through secondary school nicely and made up for being rubbish at sport. When I reached Hugh Baird in Bootle at the tender age of 16 the foundation course was populated with former sixth formers. They were all so much older and properly esoteric.

Some students were more ‘arty’ than others…some didn’t seem arty at all and yet everyone was producing art. We all had one thing in common, we’d all been really good at art in school and now you felt were exclusively in the company of artists. Your taste or preferences were yours alone and everything was suddenly useful to you creatively if you could make art out of it. You were tasked with ‘projects’, I love the idea of a nice new project…

What does it mean to be an artist in the Liverpool City Region?

You noticed I called Liverpool Home when I was talking about Sweden? All those years in Sweden and I’d still say to whoever….you know, I’m going home next week for a visit. Liverpool was always home, in London I’d say I was going home. I can tell you there is nowhere in Sweden like Liverpool. I can’t really speak for anywhere else.

If you are an artist then maybe you will only ever do your best work in the place you call home and home doesn’t have to be the place you grew up. I am hoping I still have my best work to do and I’m certain that Liverpool is the place I will do it.

Discover more of Neale Thomas’ work on our online shop!