Thomas Hoareau is a West Australian figurative artist who exhibits at Earlywork Gallery Fremantle. He has been developing his practice for almost forty years, having graduated from the West Australian Institute of Technology in 1982. He’s associated with other figurative painters known as Oddfellows, and is best known for work that combines personal and public within the landscape of the city.

Thomas drinks tea, black or white—Twinings or Madura. Coffee at a café is a large almond milk latte or cappuccino, lately from Il Lido in Cottesloe. With a cup of coffee, one can reflect and settle one’s emotions. The coffee-drinking experience provides the frame for an intimacy with the self and another, real or imagined.

“Northbridge Red and Blue” is about pleasure and pain. The painting mixes red and blue to make variations of purple and violet. Ghosts of the past walk down Glendower Street. Jacaranda tree branches heavy with blossom humbly bend in the wind. Hard rain falls in November. The fallen blossom turns blue in the wet gutter. Intimacy transforms into loneliness. Northbridge—a space, a mindset, a longing to belong.

Thomas loves that strangers might be surprised to see artwork on their coffee cup and perhaps understand the mixed emotions expressed in his work.

Website: thomashoareau.com