Edward Clydesdale Thomson Bio
CALM BEFORE THE STORM Radius, Delft, The Netherlands 2022
Where Shall We Plant the Placenta? A Tail of a Tub, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2022
spellbound CBK Zeeland, Middelburg, The Netherlands 2022
rivier, boot, stad Dordrecht’s Museum, Dordrecht, The Netherlands ongoing
bound to the miraculous online ongoing
Grazer Kunstverein is moving Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria ongoing
Microplastics Rain Down from the Sky Division of Labour, Art Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2020
Buffer zones Paradise Works, Manchester, UK 2019
landfall O&O funding, CBK, Rotterdam 2019
An exhibition of posters Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2018
wild care tame neglect - exhibition Frankendael Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2018
below the soil, between the branches, above the clouds Into Nature, biennial, Drenthe 2018
how to kill a tree Frankendael Foundation, Amsterdam 2018
Tuin van Toorop Jan Tooropstraat, Amsterdam 2018
noon Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland 2017
the necessity of art Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria 2017
wilder beings command Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland 2017
wild care tame neglect Frankendael Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2016
poster club Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2017
The Society Machine Malmo Konstmuseum, Malmo 2016
Static Gravity Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam 2016
Crossing Borders Expanding Frontiers ramfoundation, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2016
As the lake said to the boat Kunsthuis SYB, Beetsterzwaag, The Netherlands 2015
Nothin Shakin but the Leaves on the Trees Marabouparken konsthall, Sunsbyberg, Sweden 2015
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain CCA Derry~Londonderry, Lismore Castle Arts St Carthage Hall 2015
Belief and Productivity O&O funding, CBK, Rotterdam 2014
The Non Urban Garden: tuinen van de 21e eeuw Afdh & Kunstvereniging Diepenheim 2014
iaspis Open House, spring 2014 iaspis, Stockholm 2014
The Distracted Gardener & The Plumbing Subverter Yeo Workshop, Singapore 2013
Late Nights & Early Mornings Kunstraum, London 2013
25 Years Rotterdam City Collection Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam 2013
here is always somewhere else Forum Triangulare, Oud-Rekem, Belgium 2013
Abilities Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art, Amsterdam 2013
Lost & Found at the Flügelbus Lost & Found, Amsterdam 2013
causa finalis Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam 2012
As if an entrance is over there- Lecturis, Eindhoven 2012
Rijksakademie Open 2012 Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdamm 2012
The research and destroy department of the Black Mountain College W139, Amsterdam 2012
We are rolling galerie-j, Geneva 2012
There was a Country where They were all Thieves Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art, Amsterdam 2012
Secret Gardens TENT, Rotterda, 2012
FlowerCASTLE Kasteel Keukenhof Art Foundation, Lisse 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011 Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Fritids areal)’, 3 Landscape photograph with overlaid screen-printed colour gradients and leave patterns(172cm by 130cm), mirror with screen-printed image (107cm by 217cm), stamped leave pattern directly on wall, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Butterfly house)’, Sphere 90cm diameter with one image across its entire surface, 2011
Rijksakademie Open 2011
Documentation, ‘In a green shade (Butterfly house)’, Sphere 90cm diameter with one image across its entire surface, 2011

“He talked of fore-grounds, distances, and second distances – side-screens and perspectives – lights and shades… and by and easy transition from a piece of rock fragment and the withered oak which he placed near its summit, to oaks in general, to forests, the enclosure of them, waste lands, crown lands and government, he shortly found himself arrived at politics: and from politics, it was an easy step to silence.” Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, ed. R. W. Chapman (Oxford, 1980), 111. ‘In a green shade(Fritids areal)’ began with a series of images I took in a Danish summerhouse area. In the first instance I was drawn to work with this area because it was a place I had spent so much of my childhood exploring and thus felt very at home in. But I grew to question what was it about this area, and the images of it, that resonated with how I felt a ‘natural’ area should be. This lead me to look at historical models of landscape design endemic to central Europe and the ideology behind them. I was interested in two particular moments in the history of gardening; the late-model English Landscape Garden of the second half of the eighteenth century and its morphing into the ‘picturesque’ style, and the Baroque French formal garden of the seventeenth century. This particular area, like most of its type, was divided and planted in the 1960s. There was a small forest before this but over the last fifty years, as each owner sought to hide their property inside a picturesque paradise, the area has transformed into a large romantic forest, much in the style of the late-model English Landscape Garden. As you walk around this area, it does not seem constructed or really even inhabited. In fact, the image of nature that has been created is so convincing and widespread in my opinion, that it has become the dominant model for Western Europe. In choosing to work with this location, and choosing not to frame the houses within my images, I was deliberately trying to capitalise on its ‘idyllic,’ ‘romantic’ qualities while at the same time being very aware that there is nothing spectacular in the images, in fact they are quite commonplace. I find that this balance between the commonplace and the spectacular gives the images an instability of status which I began to try to tweak out as I worked further with them. First with hand colouring, then by adding pattern related to the tree species visible in the images and eventually by incorporating them into wall panelling. Using printing both practically and conceptually, as a medium that can overlay or stamp one thing on top of another I worked over and over these images, searching for what makes them so normal while at the same time seductive. ‘In a green shade, (Butterfly house)’ is a sphere with one continuous image across its entire surface, in the much same was as a globe, in that there is no left or right, top or bottom. The image is a photo-stitch consisting of images of the interior of the butterfly house at Rotterdam zoo.

I was fascinated by the butterfly house. A most unusual, progressive form of looking was created by the enclosure: a form of fully immersive vision. The enclosure is a densely planted greenhouse which you can navigate using its looped path. The butterflies surround you, everywhere yet elusive. Visitors freeze like disjointed trees awaiting flittering settlers or hunt with frenzied zoom and feverish snapping. In the enclosure you don’t know where to look, the environment fully immersive, and thus most importantly the visual hierarchy completely broken. Many times I tried to photograph this experience, but always failed to capture what I found so radical. I was not interested in representing this experience, but rather of attempting to create a work that to some degree simulated it. At a certain moment I realised that it was me standing there with the camera which was spoiling my shot by creating the very visual hierarchy who’s absence I wanted. Realising this pushed me towards an idea of creating in a sphere a kind of inversion of the butterfly house, thus creating an image without a stable position in which to look at it.

Rijksakademie

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a green thought, in a green shade Art Amsterdam MK Gallery 2011
Prix de Rome 2011 Smart project space, Amsterdam 2011
Borderline Picturesque & the Recounting Prospect Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø, Norway 2010
New Graffiti, Old Revolutions MK gallery, Rotterdam 2010
A group show Croxhapox, Ghent 2010
Done to a dead end & the dead or alive sale SD&G, Rotterdam 2010
Edward Clydesdale Thomson SECONDroom, Brussels 2009
A Leopard, Some Monkeys, Numerous Butterflies, Dozens of Peacocks and a Sublime Vista 4th Issue NOWISWERE, Contemporary Art Magazine, London 2009
Open Office for Words ADA, Rotterdam 2009
Imaginary Cinema - Discussion WDW 653, Rotterdam 2009
Residency at Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam WDW 653, Rotterdam 2009
Impromptu Affairs DEK 22, Rotterdam 2009
Selbstzweck Private Collection 2008
Residency at Kysten Tromsø Kysten Tromsø 2008
Small Talk with the Janitor Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam 2008
My Travels with Barry, MA Graduation Show Tent, Rotterdamt 2008
Just what is it that makes that thing so different, so appealing? Expodium, Utrecht 2008
Observing Construction NEST, Netherlands Architectuurinstituut (NAi) Rotterdam 2007
This is how it must feel to be there Pakhuismeesteren, Rotterdam 2007