roanne thomas ~ artist statement

My creative work begins with what has been left behind. I gather reclaimed wood, forgotten images, rusted objects, and vintage ephemera. These materials carry the weight of time and use. They are already embedded with story and with texture. Through collage and assemblage, I explore memory, identity, and women's ways of knowing.

My artistic practice is entwined with my scholarly work. As a Canada Research Chair in Creative Practices and Well-being, I explored the ways in which creativity supports meaning-making during significant life passages. More recently, I led a research team that invited women to engage with art-making to explore experiences of illness. My arts-based research focuses on transitions and transformation. That line of inquiry is present in my art as well. I am drawn to places where histories, materials, and ecological relationships are continually shifting. I am especially interested in the ways in which coastal landscapes can shape new forms of making and ways of knowing.

The inclusion of text is another place where my identity as a writer/scholar and visual artist intersect. Text finds its way into much of my collage work. It lands as fragments and found language, salvaged from old books and ephemera. I can't imagine working without it.

Each piece is both transformation and excavation. In layers of texture and contrast, with the rough against the delicate, the discarded finds a new space as something to be treasured. My work is held in private collections in Canada and the United States, and I am represented by Rothwell Gallery in Ottawa.