Heidi Thompson (Wunderli) was born in Vernon, B.C. Canada. After graduating high school she moved to Europe to study art. From 1975-1979 she attended the University of Art & Design in Zürich earning a Swiss Diploma for Professional Photography. She then moved to Nürnberg and apprenticed with German painter Oskar Koller. Koller recommended that she continue her art education at the Akademie der Buildene Künste Nürnberg. Thompson was accepted and spent one year under the guidance of Professor Ernst Weil, However, seeking a more traditional art school, Thompson moved to Budapest to study painting with Professor Kokas Ignac at the Hungarian State University for Fine Art. In 1982, Thompson returned to Canada and worked as a freelance photographer, painter and book publisher. She married Edward Thompson and had a family. Currently, Heidi Thompson paints full-time and exhibits her work in Europe, Canada and the USA.
COLLECTIONS
2012 Senvest Canadian Collection
2007 Samuel Lallouz Private Collection, Montreal
2006 Mraz Collection, Toronto
2004 Private collection of Robert Keller, USA
2006 Corporate collection, Benefit Plan Administrators Inc. Mississauga
PUBLICATION & ARTICLES
2016 "OK Sunshine Airport Exhibition" / Okanagan Life
2012 Wrote CALM FOCUS JOY: The Power of Breath Awareness
1995 Published Recapitulation - A Journey Life of Sveva Caetani
1992 Featured Artist, Okanagan Life, written by Charlotte Berglund
1989 Illustrated Little Bear Book
1989 Drawings, Galerie, Vancouver art magazine
1985 Illustrations for Reflections written by Brock Tulley
1980 Photographs, Professional Camera, May-June 1979
1979 100 Photographs - Zurich Chamber Orchestra
AWARDS & GRANTS
1996 VanCity Book of Excellence Award for Recapitulation
1984 B.C Cultural Project Grant through the Kelowna Art Gallery
STATEMENT
I am inspired by Impressionists Turner, Seurat, Van Gogh, Monet and Expressionists Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko and Mark Tobey. Contemporary artists who inspire me include Joseph Marioni and Natvar Bhavsar from New York. These artists, even when painting "realistically" break up their image into particles of light, colour and movement. Much of their work appears to be a glowing, unified field of energy.
For me, art is about energy. I strive to create paintings that elicit an energizing experience, Over the years I have developed a style I call “energy field painting”. I found certain combinations of colour, light flecks and lines moving in an illusion of space trigger physical vibrations. Maybe this "feeling" is what Kandinsky, who studied the physiological and spiritual attributes of colour. described as innere Klang or inner resonance. Some viewers while standing in front of my monochromes have felt a flow of subtle sensations. I've heard them comment... "I don't know what I'm looking at, but the painting makes me feel peaceful."
I believe that
my energy fields have evolved alongside
thirty-five years of Vipassana meditation practice.
Vipassana is
a specific form of introspective "seeing" that focuses on reality
felt via physical sensations. Sensations underlie all
experience – including art experience. While painting, I
strive to express this felt reality; not the "reality" I
see or imagine. My hope is to create paintings that
trigger sensations that energize and uplift the viewer.
Henri Matisse described this goal so beautifully about his own work,
“..
.to create paintings that have a calming and soothing effect on the mind.”
EXHIBITIONS
2019 Vernon Art Gallery "The Light Within You"
2018 Contemporary Art Fair Zürich (Halde Galerie)
2018 Arco Gallery, NY (Represented)
2016 Kelowna International Airport "OK Sunshine"
2016 Vernon / Headbones Art Gallery / "Ok Artists"
2016 Ottawa / The Cube Gallery "Blue - A Group Show"
2015 Lake Country Public Art Gallery "They Tell You Where to Go"
2015 Vancouver International Art Fair
2015 Palm Beach Gardens / Onessimo Fine Art Gallery
2014 San Diego / Alexander Salazar Gallery
2014 Vernon / Headbones Gallery
2014 Widen Switzerland / Halde Galerie (Represented)
2012 Vernon / Headbones Gallery (group)
2012 Montreal / Galerie D'Avignon (solo)
2012 La Jolla, CA / Alexander Salazar Contemporary Exhibits (solo)
2011 Armstrong Public Art Gallery / "Mind Space Energy" (solo)
2011 San Antonio, TX / Gallery Nord Exhibit "11/11/11"(group)
2011 San Diego / Alexander Salazar Art Gallery (solo)
2010 Atlanta / Bill Lowe Gallery "Bloom: The New Abstraction"
2009 Atlanta / Bill Lowe Gallery (group)
2009 Toronto / Lausberg Contemporary (group)
2009 Vernon / Gallery Vertigo (solo)
2009 Toronto / Varley Art Gallery (group)
2009 New York / Lana Santorelli Gallery (group)
2008 Montreal / Galerie Samuel Lallouz (group)
2008 New York / Lana Santorelli Gallery (group)
2008 Grand Forks / Grand Forks Art Gallery (solo)
2007 Toronto / The Drawers - Headbones Art Gallery (represented)
2005 Vernon / Vernon Public Art Gallery (group)
2000 Vancouver / Howe Street Art Gallery (represented)
1996 Vernon / Headbones Art Gallery (solo)
1994 Vancouver / Simon Patrich Art Gallery (represented)
1992 New York / Viridian Art Gallery (represented)
1991 Kelowna / Kelowna City Hall (solo)
1991 Vancouver / Festival of the Arts (juried/group)
1989 Vancouver / Robson Square Media Centre (group)
1989 Vancouver / Community Arts Centre/BC Women Artists (solo)
1987 Vernon / Topham Brown Public Art Gallery (solo)
1985 Vernon / Topham Brown Public Art Gallery (solo)
1985 Grand Forks / Grand Forks Public Art Gallery (solo)
1985 Kelowna / Kelowna Public Art Gallery (solo)
1983 Vancouver / BC Festival of the Arts (juried/group)
1981 Hungarian / State University (group)
1980 Nürnberg / Kom Youth Centre (solo)
1980 Nürnberg Gallerie der Stadt (group)
1978 Zürich / Witikon Community Centre "Zürich Chamber Orchestra" Heidi Wunderli
"Particle physics comes to mind when looking at each of these paintings, for they engage in a dialogue of form and content. There is no labeling or identification with conventional representation, nor is the shaping, or containment of form part of the language of Thompson’s art. Superficially they can be compared to Seurat’s pointillist paintings such as A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte (1884) for the particularization of matter ends up creating a kind of tonal vibration throughout."
- John K. Grande, Canadian Art Critic / Heidi Thompson:There is No Answer
.