Defiance Gallery is delighted to present its first exhibition of Ann Thomson’s work.

Described by Edmund Capon as ‘one of the most interesting and intuitive artists in Australia today’, Ann’s illustrious career spans 50 years and was most recently celebrated in ‘Freehand,’ a survey show of recent works curated by Terence Maloon, Director of the Drill Hall, ANU Canberra. A selection of these works, with additional paintings from 2002 - 2016, will be shown in Sydney  at Defiance Gallery at the Yellow House, followed by a works on paper exhibition at Defiance Gallery, Newtown.
— Terence Maloon, Director of the Drill Hall Gallery, ANU, Canberra

“For more than forty years Ann Thomson has been working as an abstract artist. Her works make no attempt to reproduce to the viewer the world of visual objects and phenomena. What they offer us instead is the energetic act of creation itself, as it emerges from the artist’s consciousness and impinges on the sheet, or canvas, as brushstrokes, layers of paint, the illusionary play between two-dimensional space and three-dimensional apprehension, the immediate revisioning of accident as necessary choice. Everything depends here on the sureness of the painter’s gestures as she breaks, stroke by stroke, into stillness of empty space.”
— David Malouf, internationally acclaimed Australian author

“Thomson’s best paintings invite the desire to revisit them repeatedly, and they keep yielding fresh revelations. The forms are enigmatic, the internal space ambiguous, movement seems perpetual.”
— Anna Johnson, author of 'Ann Thomson' 2012

“…Just as Ann’s imagery insinuates itself into our powers of recall, it enters our being, it penetrates deeply into the most unexpected recesses of our soul, its effect is continuous”
— Stéphane Jacob, Galerie Arts d'Australie, Paris

“Ann Thomson possesses the rare ability to constantly reinvent herself as an artist, but within the same broad body of thought about art making, and to constantly convey a palpable sense of excitement in her work…[she is] an artist who combines a sureness of touch with a striking vitality plus a heightened sense of visual intelligence.  She is an artist who has stuck to her guns and who only gets progressively stronger with age.”
— Sasha Grishin, art historian, critic and curator