Untitled III, from the Reims series

Born in Brisbane, Ann Thomson studied at the National Art School in Sydney (1957-62) and has exhibited nationally and internationally since that time. She won the Wynne Prize in 1998. Her work has its roots in mid-century Sydney abstraction, which she has continued to develop in her painting and drawing practice to the present.

Thomson’s process and imagery is intuitive and inventive, with a focus on painterly abstraction, and her most recent work has placed great emphasis on colour and the consolidation of her own visual language. This small gouache has a loose, gestural quality with a transparency and clarity of colour that reveals the layers of its making. The spatial and compositional tensions of the work draw the eye into the picture plane, revealing the possibilities of her materials and their potential of both positive and negative space. It shares with her recent acrylics an openness to the incidental qualities of her materials, with the liquid movement of her paint - pooling and dripping - a regular feature, as well as an increased incorporation of negative space.

Over the last twenty years, Thomson has undertaken regular residencies in France where she immerses herself in the local culture and conditions of light and weather while working in the studio. This gouache was painted in Reims, north-west of Paris.