Jeremy Thomas

Ever the pragmatist, Jeremy Thomas learned metal forging because wanted to make his own chisel to use in carving stone sculptures. Little did he imagine that we would soon abandon stone to work exclusively with metal. After a period working as a metalsmith, Thomas stumbled upon his now-signature technique of heating steel upwards of 2800 degrees Fahrenheit, rendering it malleable as clay, then injecting it with pressurized air to create voluminous forms. The process involves cutting steel plates into circular shapes, folding them into a pattern, and welding them into place to form sensual, “inflated” sculptures characterized by creases, folds, wrinkles, and curved lines. He coats parts of these erotic and biomorphic forms with the slick colors characteristic to industrial farming, while leaving other parts in a raw state of oxidization. As Thomas describes, this juxtaposition is meant to heighten “the sense of contrast between the synthetic and the organic.”