Thomas Collection #11 - Glowing Elephant Painting

The Thomas Collection is a journey into African culture and presented with an American artistic heritage view. It moved me to create this body of work from the deep conversations with African historian Mr. Thomas. The talks I had with him about historical artifacts made a profound imprint on me, and thrust me into creation mode. Africa is a big topic with a lot of parts. I quickly found that I needed to reach out to different people and parts of Africa to widen my scope. I have never been moved as much about African art as when I learned about different parts of the country that were new to me. This body of work is representational and my vision of some of the documents, artifacts, and conversations that I was introduced to. After many days in the studio, a rich vibrant collection of masks were created and the Thomas Collection was born. These masks are not intended to represent a particular people but the culture from country to country. Let your heart and mind be excited as you embrace the richness of Africa in America.