Thomas Langley

Mummy’s Boy XL Orange on White, 2019, Oil and spray paint on birch, Two panels 215 x 211 cm
 The breadth of Langley’s
working methods is a means
to discover and explore
new territories for artistic
comment. He is interested
in the idea of manual
thought – how thinking
gets into an object. In
parallel, he likes the idea
that this manual thought
could blur the boundaries
between an artwork and
the artistic life that gives
rise to it. The material
expression of consciousness
also turns into a question
about the physical/spatial
boundaries the artwork
occupies, and the status
it maintains in the wider
world. His work is often
self-referential although
approaching certain
universal truths through that;
the human condition, or
more specifically the artistic
condition, are what he
strives to make contact with.

Busman’s Holiday and Travelin Light, for Out Of Office, PADA, Lisbon, 2019
Beach House XL, 2019, Oil paint, oil bar, spray paint and gloss on polyester, 160 x 235 cm
Busman’s Holiday and Travelin Light, for Out Of Office, PADA, Lisbon, 2019
Grand Designs 1-6, 2019, Oil bar and spray paint on paper, 76 x 56 cm each
Dreamer, Installation View, Royal Academy, 2018
Paper, 2018, Oil bar and spray paint on paper, 112 x 153 cm
Mummy’s Boy, 2018, Oil on birch ply, 70 x 50 cm
Thomas Langley
b. 1986, London, UK
Lives and works in London
https://www.instagram.com/thomaslangley86
Member of the Royal Academy Young Patrons Committee

Education
2016-2018: Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art, Royal Academy Schools, London
2007-2010: BA (Hons) Fine Arts, UCA Canterbury

Solo exhibitions
Mummy’s boy, collaborative representation between Cob gallery, Frestonian Gallery, Marian Cramer Projects, Charlie
Smith London and Union Gallery, London, 2019
Mega Alright Part II, Union Gallery, London, 2018-2019
Just like anything, Marian Cramer, Amsterdam, 2018
Solo booth at Art on Paper, Marian Cramer, Amsterdam, 2018
Big Windows, The Arcade Project, London, 2018
Plastic Factory (no place for me), 12 Piccadilly arcade, London, 2018
(Pipe) Dreamer, Royal academy schools graduation show, London, 2018
Future Absurdities, Unit 1 Gallery Workshop, London, 2017
Art Type Stuff, Stour Space, London, 2016

Selected group exhibitions

Absinthe, London, 2019
Out of Office, Pada, Lisbon, 2019
Young Gods, Charlie Smith Gallery, London, 2019
Telescope, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, 2019
Union Gallery London Art Fair, London, 2019
The Big Art Show, Amsterdam Art Weekend, Marian Cramer, Amsterdam, 2018
Paper Cuts, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2018
Zone d’Utopie Temporaire part IV, Wozen, Lisbon, 2018
Material, Cob gallery, London, 2018
YOU SEE ME LIKE A UFO, The Grange, Royal Ascot, 2017
A series of pocket Utopias, Yellow Brick and Snehta, Athens, 2017
It is what it isn’t, Big Shed, Aldeburgh, 2017
Cut, Unit 1 Gallery Workshop, London, 2017
Premiums: Interim Projects, Royal Academy, London, 2017
Zone d’Utopie Temporaire Part II, The Koppel Project Hive, London, 2016
Charley Thomas, CRATE, Margate, 2014
Words

«The very idea of being an artist is a kernel where many people are coming from. Yet within
of genuine faith amid a cluster of dark forces, this, however, there is plenty of self-deprecation
including issues of class, social status, work and and wit - there has been a boutique of his own
energy, connoisseurship and intellectualism. This ‘art-type stuff’, including abstract swimming shorts
is an art in which the need to make art and the art and ‘proper paintings’. In this show, a slug of
object itself become the same thing - a gesture something vaguely sculptural trails like a lengthy
of both the power and freedom of the self and a turd across a portrait of the artist living it up in a
middle-finger to the economic powers of display, swimming pool. With its air of both exhaustion and
marketeering and judgement that shoot you down, urgency, this is humorous, politically angry and life
that demand you ‘work harder’, ‘make it better’ (all affirming work.»
slogans from other works). Langley shorts-out the
work’s ability to transcend the terrors, humiliations, Nigel Cooke, 2019
doubts and economic pressures on artists: ‘Buy
Mum A House’ shriek many of his paintings,
humorously letting go of the need to bury his base
intentions for the work in aesthetics and ideas, in
making an audience feel good at his own expense.
‘Kill Me Now’ murmurs a slab of a painting lying on
its back, under which a stack of beach inflatables
bulges and strains with contrasting youthful vigour.
What’s getting to him is where we’ve arrived at as
a culture - that being made to play a specific game
in order to be heard does not suit the reality of
Words

«Thomas Langley investigates and employs

painting histories and diverse social theories
to position his practice. Throughout his time
at the RA he has explored different making
strategies negotiating theory and practice. He has
developed into a critical, reflexive practitioner,
making informed decisions about the production,
resolution and presentation of works. Through his
practice he​​courts questions of status, attitudes,
taste, lifestyle; the work mines the boundaries
between living and working – personal thoughts
and public statements – the negation and re-
articulation of Art and Life at this contemporary
moment.»

Eliza Bonham Carter, 2018

Words

«Thomas Langley makes work from the

uncomfortable everyday, facing the questions and
enduring emotions we all live with.

The work is provocative and difficult, both

immediate and genuinely raw. Full of complex life
experience, somehow his work becomes engaging
and optimistic. For me he’s an artist of opposites.»

Eileen Cooper, 2017

Current

Now working towards

upcoming exhibitions
in London, Faro,
Athens and Istanbul.