"

A whole new ground to tread

"When this pack first came to idea, I wanted it to be a celebration of the work that I’ve been making over the past decade. Half a year later it’s here, a love letter to what keeps me drawing.

At times it all started to feel like an end of a chapter, it can be hard looking backwards. My interests and techniques have expanded a lot throughout this time so it was weird to look through older work... I found myself asking ‘Was my work better before?’ :‘o)

But, I’m here now and I feel spurred on, lifted, and excited to draw. So maybe this pack is just a milestone, and I have got whole new ground to tread. At least for another 10 years."

Five (2020) is a zine of drawings I made over lockdown, I got obsessed and trapped in a loop, and when looking through the 100+ drawings of blurred, fragmented illustrations.

You and all our friends (2021) was a drawing I submitted and was delighted to put on a beer label for House of Cans. It’s for those lazy summer hangs where you don’t have to speak, you can just be.

Risographs, lithographs, pantones and foils

"I wanted to avoid the same old same old as much as possible and celebrate other work I love whilst keeping a loose but complimentary theme. I can’t quite tell you what that theme is in words but I think they sort of work together — maybe they are bittersweet or quietly powerful drawings (apart from the Bum I suppose, but I couldn’t leave that one out).

I tried to print them in their best light, the Petrol Station is a thin as possible lithograph fold-out poster to be delicate. The gold blue Soft fruits, growing risograph is bold but still soft. Meanwhile the Pylon print is glossy and ethereal doused in silver Pantone. I hope people feel the same way and treasure them as intended."

Pylon (2017) is from a series of abstracted drawings of electricity pylons. They were black and white and I was intent on making them as fuzzy and chrome as I could. The closer and closer I zoomed into the pylons I found they became a more and more sci-fi space infused dream. This print is a shiny ode to that chrome dream.

Apples (2019) started as a drawing I made for neo.life on anti-aging cream, wrinkly old apples to hit the idea home. It’s long been a favourite of mine, so I gave it a little facelift and presto, it is now a delicious bookmark to keep those pages crisp.

Snake (2017) is a series of drawings I redrew a few years ago, not because I didn’t like it but the complete opposite. I really liked the old version but thought I’d love to see it through new hands; how could I treat the same themes? 

Soft fruits, growing (2022). There is immense joy and sadness for me in this illustration. Anticipating a pregnancy, growing into the size of a bean, a grape, a strawberry, a peach... it did not come to be and the emotions at the time were easier to express in a drawing. A still life. There is something complete that I feel when I look back on it now.

Petrol Station (2016) is the first real drawing without characters I made and was the first to break perspective. It’s a petrol station from where I grew up in Slough, by the edge of the trading estate, dull-no-more. For this pack it’s been recoloured to reflect a different time.

Bum (2013), Pills (2018) and Sad Medal (2015)  postcards. I can’t remember why I drew Pills – actually saved as "pills and placebo" in my files) – maybe I’d rewatched Trainspotting or Everybody in the Place, or just had a headache that day. Either way it has a sort of sugary dancey energy that I love, so much that it's been redrawn many times and hopefully many more times to come.

10 Prints is available to buy online via Thomas Hedger's store.

Links

About Thomas Hedger

Thomas mixes geometric and fluid shapes with strong linework, gradients and bold colour to create punchy illustrations and 3D installations. He takes inspiration in particular from nature and architecture, exploring isometric dimensions and ambient spaces.

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