Brigitte Mulholland is thrilled to present BA Thomas’ first solo show in Paris, La tailleur qui va partout (The Suit that Goes Everywhere). The exhibition is an anthology of new paintings and drawings conceived as a single series of work about a fictional 1970s Parisian fashion house the artist created, called Maison Aline. Each work depicts moments from the history of the fashion brand via vignettes of interiors and cityscapes. Inspired by a residency in Paris, the exhibition is a tribute to the city and its rich history of fashion, as well as an ode to the fashion designers and garment makers of all kinds who weave their voices and vision into the clothes that they sew, a parallel to the process of painting.
The fictional backstory of the exhibition marks an evolution in the artist’s practice. Previously, her work involved interiors and landscapes that were simultaneously real and imagined: psychological scenes that combined fragments and images culled from a variety of real-life sources to create unique painterly scenes. Tables, chairs, rugs, windows, and objects that inspired Thomas were woven into interior spaces or landscapes that resembled, but were not completely loyal to, real places: a compendium of images and moments collaged into the canvas and paper. Humans are almost never depicted in the work, but their traces are; invoking a slightly surreal and palpable energy, their psychological presence always extremely felt. The story of Maison Aline furthers this impulse, and questions ideas of legacy and absence - stories long forgotten, histories lost to time. The process of collaging real inspirations into imagined scenes remained the same; all here culled from the artist’s time spent in Paris.
