Edek Thompson

Edek is a community artist, who paints the apocalypse one dog, pigeon or crow at a time. Creating fun and disturbing images of a future ravaged by climate change, he imagines a world full of mutations and strange adaptations, where duck feet will aid survival in a new lifetime underwater. His work is a future mythology, a way to remember and document the things around us for when they are no longer there.

Sustainability and accessibility are key factors in Edek’s work and inform his material choices. He uses found and donated materials, household emulsions rescued from landfill, boards from building sites and vinyl from sign shop bins, along with the stuff people usually have lying around at home like pens, pencils and crayons. Using these materials and working from reference photos that he has taken himself, Edek hopes his creations can help to spread a little joy and optimism at the end of the world.

Edek’s work started as a way of working through his own anxieties around climate change, but soon developed into a deeper exploration of his own mental health and wellbeing, an acknowledgement of isolation due to chronic pain, a meditation on grief and loss, and a question of how we can engage with, build, and maintain supportive, nurturing communities.

Edek Thompson

Artwork