Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas is a painter working in response to plants in the environment, with a particular focus on urban wild plants.

“My practice is informed by field work (walking, making notes, taking photographs, drawing, and painting from direct observation). In the studio, I paint from snapshots taken on my phone. These reference photos often show the subject viewed directly from above.

I use water-based paints; painting in thin layers to slowly build up intricate compositions. Loose and playful brushstrokes accumulate as I navigate a space between plant form and painting.”

Solo exhibitions: No patch of green too small, presented by Huddersfield Art Gallery, at the University of Huddersfield, 2025: Habitat, Mura Ma Gallery, Manchester, 2024: Dandelions and Double Yellows, Wakefield Cathedral, 2021.

In 2025 Manchester Art Gallery acquired Thomas’s painting ‘Common Whitlowgrass, Close in, Smyth Street’ thanks to the generosity of The Manchester Contemporary Art Fund.

Thomas is a member of The Pearls, a collective of 20 northern female painters.

Group exhibitions include: The Irving Open 2026, Oxford: Planted at The FG Gallery, Cheshire (2025); Flora and Fauna at Saul Hay Gallery, Manchester (2025); Nature Sensory at The Art House and University of Leeds; Planting Ideas at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Hampshire (2024); Entwined: Plants in Contemporary Painting at Huddersfield Art Gallery (2022) and tour to 20-21 Visual Arts in Scunthorpe (2023); Conversations with Nature, with Natalie Dowse and Alison Critchlow at The Art House (2022); and the Jerwood Drawing Prize (2016).

Thomas graduated from Falmouth School of Art (BA Fine Art) and completed a year of postgraduate study with Turps Art School. She is currently AA2A Artist in Residence at Leeds Beckett University.