Michelle Thomasson - Poetic Mixed Media
Since young I have loved gardens and their design, organic horticulture and I'm passionate about caring for nature. I love watercolours, charcoal and pastels, but I also sometimes use embroidery and crochet, with a dash of craftivism and a creative piece with living plants.
A picture can paint a thousand words, unless of course it is poetry, then very few words often say much more.
Resilience in the natural world flourishes with diversity, what happens to our culture, society and environment when the driving forces of economic 'development' harm biodiversity, each other and make profit at any cost, even war? Art and creativity can provoke thought and elicit conversation about our situation, many of my pieces want to talk.
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Although originally from the North East of England and loving the wilds of Northumberland, I prefer to use a bright, colourful palette, perhaps due to many years in mainland Europe. I’m especially fond of the amazing swathes of colour tucked into Dutch flower baskets, they cheered so many canals and market places and after spending almost a decade with the intense sunlight and vibrant hues of Southern Spain my pieces often blaze with colour.
I was involved with ‘Art for Carers’ in Gloucestershire Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey and I exhibited work during Cheltenham Heritage week (2014 and 2015), as well as Little Buckland Gallery as part of the Broadway Arts Festival in 2016 on the theme of ‘Conflict’ where my research for Campaign Against Arms Trade WW1 project was shown. Since 2018, I have taken part in the summer and Christmas Brighton and Hove Artist’s Open Houses, including the Kemptown and West Hove Art Trails. Last year, August 2023, I took part in the Kemptown Summer Exhibition.
As well as an aficionado of community gardens (my last community urban garden was with BHOGG in Brighton), I help take care of ancient woodland in Mid Sussex which is included in The Lost Woods Project and as volunteers, our care of a meadow within the woodland received an 'Outstanding' commendation from the RHS. Since 2010, I have also been wildflower plant spotting for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme and I am still part of the Greenmap project after writing the code for one of the first clickable green maps on the World Wide Web in 1997 - long before Google maps was even a twinkle in anyone's eye!
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Here's a brief overview on LinkedIn