Sculptor, painter, photographer, printmaker, Elizabeth Thomson uses a multitude of techniques and tools to create works that push the notion of ‘beautiful’ into new territories.

Her approach can be at times described as surrealist, while at others she is an isolated observer of the esoteric and the remote. Her abstracted geometric compositions incorporate a variety of botanical, entomological and molecular forms, compellingly recreated through her study of the natural world. Thomson’s work draws on music, philosophy and mathematics as well as the material world surrounding her. Early on, delicate facsimiles of leaves and moths had us paying attention to humble things.

Born in Auckland in 1955, Elizabeth Thomson travelled extensively before enrolling at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, studying printmaking and sculpture and graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1988. Already she was holding solo exhibitions, and since then her works have been exhibited in galleries around the country and overseas, with numerous site-specific commissions. In 2006 her contribution to New Zealand art was recognised and celebrated through a major 20-year retrospective was toured nationally, My Hi-Fi My Sci-Fi, referenced her interest in music as well as the order and chaos of Nature. In 2011 she was invited onto an artist residence programme in the Kermadec Islands, an experience that affected her profoundly and resulted in one of her many exhibitions inspired by the sea.

Edition of 25. Also held by National Gallery of Australia