Пенелопа Томпсон

raintrees

source: penelopethompson

Penelope Thompson is an Australian contemporary artist working internationally. Her work includes outdoor and indoor installation art, performance art , interactive community art events as well as more conventional art forms such as painting, photography and sculpture. She is currently living in Australia where she works as an artist and teacher. This website provides a small sample of images, videos and information about her Explore Creativity classes and workshops, art exhibitions and performances.

Artist’s Statement

Often when people find out I am an artist they ask me why I don’t just paint, or make nice, saleable art objects. They want to know why I travel around the world making temporary art installations or even briefer performances, that many people maybe don’t understand. Those are fair questions, but the answers are not straightforward.

I believe we are given this life to explore our selves, each other, and our world as much as we possibly can. We only have to look around our own town or country to see that many of our current human practices and belief systems are not functioning well to sustain life on this planet.

There is an old saying – ‘if you keep doing what you’ve always done, then you’ll get what you’ve always got’ – so I see art as a way of creating new thought patterns and new experiences. The creative force is within all of us, in fact, it is our life. I would like to think that my art work can inspire and empower others to recognise their own creative powers.

In 2004 I was invited to a provincial school in Korea as their first ever foreign visitor and their first visiting artist. After finishing our interactive art experience called ‘Making World Peace’ one of the 14 year old students asked me through an interpreter why I was an artist. I thought for a moment about his question and then answered ‘because it’s FUN!’.
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source: penelopethompson

In “Raintrees” – the artist wanted to express the feeling of the heavy, cool raindrops of the summer rainy season in Korea.

The materials used were clear plastic tubing, partially filled with water and air. These giant raindrops were tied to the branches of trees, and suspended a few inches above the ground. The audience could walk under the trees between the raindrops swaying in the breeze. This installation remained hanging in the trees of the park for two weeks.