Roy Thomasson

Roy joined the Army as a boy soldier (an undiagnosed dyslexic) in 1963 and served his apprenticeship at the Infantry Junior Leaders Battalion in Oswestry, leaving in December 1964 to join his battalion (The 1st Battalion The Lancashire Regiment Prince of Wales Volunteers) serving with them in Swaziland, Catterrick, Cyprus, Aden, Libya and Malta. He married in 1968 and in 1969 was posted away from the Regiment.

In 1971 Roy went to Hereford and stayed there for the next fifteen eventful years, having passed selection for 22 SAS. Leaving fifteen years to the day in 1986 he spent the next five years at Art College first in Hereford and then Coventry gaining a B.A. Hons in Fine Art fulfilling a lifetime ambition to study art and learn to paint.

To begin with Roy struggled with his subject matter and tutors who wanted him to move away from painting military subjects. Finally, he took the advice of one of the more "maverick" tutors who said "If you have an obsession, follow it and fuck them" and that is just what he did with both his paintings and thesis - all of which became based on images of conflict.

Roy found the feelings and emotions felt during military service often came to the surface when doing research work, especially looking at the many varied photographs produced by war photographers from conflicts across the globe. It became another journey of discovery and a realisation that we each take away from a painting something different which is based on our own life experiences and prejudices.

Having had to rejoin the real world to earn a living, Roy is now at a stage where he is about to leave the UK for a sunnier climate to start painting again and hopefully take on new subject matter.

He's looking forward to this next journey and we wish him luck.

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