Adam and Eve, mixed media on canvas, 80¼ x 533/8"

Among the grouping of portrait-like paintings are pieces like On These Shores and In This Space (Suit), both of which show Black male figures with piercing stares that are filled with warmth, but also a weariness in the eyes that suggests a more serious subtext within the paintings. Several of the paintings feature water behind the subjects, which ties nicely into the “currents” in the show title. 

In Your Eyes, oil on canvas, 12 x 9"

“Phillip Thomas elegantly weaves together Black history and its deep connection to the African diaspora. Central to his work is the journey of people across water—from Africa to Jamaica and the United States, and from Jamaica to other shores, such as the Windrush Generation’s migration to England,” says Joi Jackson Perle, RJD’s gallery director. “His vivid, layered imagery explores the complex intersections of race, history, and social constructs that continue to shape our shared narrative. The result is a body of work that reflects the strength, resilience, and beauty of the people who have come before us.”

In This Space (Suit), oil on canvas, 12 x 9"

For Thomas, the works represent the past, but also the present and future—they are unbound by time. “It is true, that many of these figures are staged by the ocean. It is also true that there exists the sort of history that created the kind of Americas that we now have, but that isn’t the only history that Africans have in the ‘Americas,’” he says. “These portraits do look at the issues of migration as well as forced trafficking and illegal immigration. This body of work will dive even deeper into that very complex history and how human movement, intentional or not, has come to shape the present and our shared foreseeable future.”

Presence, oil on canvas, 10 x 8"

Thomas continues: “History is a living thing. It isn’t something that happened at a time and stayed in that time. These repercussions echo through the ages, and we do currently live these histories. This is why I produce these pictures to not really be time specific. There are clues, of course, but taken together as a ‘family tree,’ one can see how one image ‘begets’ another.

On These Shores, oil on canvas, 10 x 8"

For Adam and Eve, Thomas uses a mixed-media approach to dissect—in this case, almost literally—humankind’s earliest origin story. “Adam and Eve, of course from the biblical accounts, tells the tale of man’s lapsarianism. It is a mixed media drawing, with collaged elements. The figures are presented as part cadaver part ‘man,’ in a way, emphasizing man’s transformation into ‘pure’ flesh, or flesh only,” the artist says. “The bodily transformation is part of the notion of the great ‘fall” and hence the awareness of their body through new concepts such as nudity. The work clearly is based in its religious foundation, however, there are so many applications to this concept that one can easily see in our own age and time. So, these concepts, I think, are relevant to much of our age of humanism.”

Grounded, oil on canvas, 12 x 9"

In the painting Tools of the Trade, Thomas again uses history to frame a perspective unique to his work. “The figure is, in one sense, a self-portrait. But it is also a representation of the transition from our previous industrial revolution through to our post industrialization. In the same way, much of those tools are being transitioned into obsolescence, so has man become like the tools he has surpassed, he seeks to be surpassed himself,” he says. “On the one hand, this can be read as the transitioning of the fourth industrial revolution where, manual labor and man’s ‘competencies’ are being phased out from the ‘hand and eye’ to the precisions of the machine. This new paradigm has given rise to something far more fundamental as ‘the basic need for man to be useful.’ As one can see, so much of our current political positioning today is based on the preservation of labor, as a nationalist right. That right dovetails with issues of immigration, de-industrialization [and more].”

Where Hope Grows, oil on canvas, 16 x 12"

Thomas’ show will remain on view through March 2. —