“Cmd+z doesn’t exist on paper”: Pat Thomas’ drawings are unapologetic and filled with feeling

Pat Thomas, a London based artist, was working on a lot of editorial briefs with fast turn arounds and low budgets. Required to work quickly in ink with digital colouring, Pat began to feel disenfranchised with staring at the computer all day. “Cmd+z doesn’t exist on paper,” says Pat, reflecting on how he then mourned the contemplative and often flawed nature of hand drawn pictures.

During a weekend visit to his parents in Cornwall, he began drawing from family photos, using crayons that he’d been given as a child, unlocking a cathartic feeling as he recaptured nostalgic memories – the sofa he played Tony Hawk on for hours, or the checkered lampshade on his parent’s bed-side table. “I started to feel intrigued by this idea that each of these objects carried so much comfort to me, and by drawing them, I was somehow keeping them alive,” says Pat.

In his most recent body of work, Room Tour, Pat is turning to objects, clothes and patterns and injecting new meanings into them. Inspired by “strange ergonomic Norwegian chairs”, Henry Moore’s sculptures and Florence Broadhurst, an Australian wallpaper designer, Pat’s illustrations are warm, kaleidoscopic and surreal. The vibrancy of his coloured crayons give these images a welcome pop, whilst the chaos of their movement – clashing textures, skewed angles and converging figures add a kinetic edge to the calmness of these intimate scenes.

What’s particularly striking about Pat’s work is how he creates the feeling of a world revolving, literally bending, around connection. “I don’t want the viewer to feel unwanted, I want them to share in the moment of gentleness, like when you look around your friends or family at dinner or at a party, and feel grateful for them,” says Pat. He invites the viewer into the fuzzy feelings of “embraces between friends or a couple gently swaying to some music”. These loving vignettes are filled with personal history – because Pat is unapologetic in imbuing his drawings with his own fond memories, and then asking you to share them.