Drawings from The Iliad and The Odyssey

This solo exhibition at The Drawing Gallery London, the first commercial gallery dedicated to contemporary drawing, showed 20 of the drawings made by Thomas to The Iliad and The Odyssey selected by the Director, Dr Yvonne Crossley. The overall cycle of 148 drawings explore the grand narratives of The Iliad and The Odyssey. The Iliad drawings were made between 1995 and 1999, and were published by Making Space as 'The Trojan War'. The Odyssey drawings, as the next phase of the overall project, continued the investigation into the potential of drawing to provide inventive solutions to the depiction and exploration of the narratives of Homer's Odyssey and Joyce's Ulysses, through contemporary and historical readings. The Odyssey drawings were made between 1999 and 2002, and shown in the Pittville Gallery, University of Gloucestershire along with those for The Iliad (2002) and in 'Drawn Together'with Peter de Francia at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (2004).The large format Artist's Book, 'The Iliad & The Odyssey', brings together sequentially the entire series of drawings created by Thomas in a boxed double volume and includes a text inspired by Thomas' drawings by acclaimed writer Elizabeth Cook, author of 'Achilles: A Novel (Methuen, 2001). Available in an edition of 25 this book was acquired for the Nicholas Kessler Collection, Archives and Special Collections, Eton College, Windsor; a private collection in Germany; and drawings were also acquired for private collections, and 14 drawings were subsequently shown at the June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Boston, USA. Reviews included The Week and Apollo.