Siân Thomas grew up in south Wales close to land farmed and mined by generations of her family. Siân had an early love for drawing, and is largely self-taught.
Today her half-timbered thatched cottage home and studio in rural Worcestershire afford Sian the peaceful lifestyle that prompts the evocation of her most cherished early memories, and have led her back to her first love of drawing and painting.
Siân runs popular workshops and courses in watercolour painting and has shown her work in open studio events and several joint and solo shows throughout the UK. In 2023 she began to submit her work for competition and has been immediately rewarded, winning the Dry Red Press Award at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour Annual Exhibition and the Judge’s Choice Award at the International Women in Watercolour Exhibition.
Her work celebrates the overlooked, taken for granted objects of domesticity and creativity. Her use of watercolour enables her paintings to pause time and by careful scrutiny of surface texture, Sian expresses the ‘hiraeth’ embedded within. The ticking of the grandfather clock, the smell of the tool shed, the colour and pattern of mother’s tapestry, remain significant childhood memories that inform and imbue her work.
“I seek evidence of human presence in everyday objects: signs of wear, the worn out, the rub of manual use, the rusted, the mouldy or moss covered.
I treasure the transience and value the changes wrought through time and with use. I find beauty in the impermanence expressed by nature's gradual reclamation of the man made.
My hope is to pay close attention to the details that reveal the life of the object, aiming to convey the personality absorbed from its user and to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary”
Gallery representation:
Park Gallery, 3 Montpellier Avenue, Cheltenham
The Lacock Gallery, Lacock, Wiltshire
Island Fine Arts, 56 Melville Street, Sandown, Isle of Wight
Awards:
The Dry Red Press Award. Royal Institute for Painters in Watercolour 2023
The Judges Favourite, International Women in Watercolour 2023
Local Artist Award, Broadway Arts Festival 2023
International Watercolour Masters Top 200 winner 2024
Exhibitions 2025
October 13th 2024 - 11th Jan 2025 - Bath Society of Artists 119th Annual Open Exhibition, Victoria Gallery, Bath
February 21st-23rd - Bath Art Fair, Bath Pavilion, Bath
May 17-18th - Open Studios. Email me for address.
Others dates will be added when available
Selected previous events
Exhibitions 2024
March - Artist of the Month, HR Gallery, Herbery Courtyard, Blackminster Business Park WR11 7RE . (Meet the Artist 2nd & 9th March, 10:30am-4pm)
March 8th-24th - Royal Watercolour Society, Bankside Gallery, London
March 28th-April13th - Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 212th Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London.
April 10th - 16th - Group Exhibition, Lower Slaughter, Glos
May 18th &19th - Open Studio. Email me for address.
June 26th - July 2nd - Group Exhibition, Gardens Gallery, Montpellier, Cheltenham
August 23rd-28th - Avon Art Trail, Open studio, Eckington, Worcestershire
September 13th -15th - Bath Art Fair, Bath Pavilion, Bath
September 13 - 5th Jan 2025 - RWA 171st Annual Open Exhibition, RWA, Bristol
October 13th - 11th Jan 2025 - Bath Society of Artists 119th Annual Open Exhibition, Victoria Gallery, Bath
2023
Quintessence, 16 Gallery, Monpellier, Cheltenham
Broadway Arts Festival, Bretforton Theatre Barn
Fluidity, The Gallery Holt, Norfolk
Worcestershire Open Studios
August Exhibition, Three Storeys Gallery, Nailsworth, Glos
Open Studio weekend as part of Eckington Open Gardens
Bath Society of Artists 118th Annual Exhibition, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath
Pop-up Group Exhibition at Bredon’s Norton Village Hall
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 211th Annual Exhibition, The Mall Galleries, London
2022
Exhibition at Bredon’s Norton Hall
Cropthorne Walkabout, exhibiting in the hall
Eckington Open Gardens and Flower Festival , my studio will be open, venue N°8
October 8th & 9th - Exhibition at Bredon’s Norton Hall, 10am-4pm