MK Thomson uses the observed body as a site for exploring the emotional and symbolic possibilities of colour. Saturated reds, pinks, greens and blues interrupt the naturalism of flesh, allowing painted hands, forearms and feet to suggest blood, heat, touch, labour, contamination or bodily intensity without resolving into one meaning. Because the rest of the figure remains closely observed, these chromatic interventions carry an ambiguous psychological charge. Pigment sits on the body while the body is translated back into pigment. By painting the body before painting the canvas, Thomson turns pigment into both subject and material, folding the act of painting back into the figure itself.
