Passage: Rapids

Passage: Rapids continues my psychogeographic exploration of water as a metaphor for the restless, ever-moving terrain of thought. In this third work of the Passage series, the river becomes a mental current—impulsive, forceful, and impossible to hold. The rapids are not simply a natural phenomenon but an inner velocity, the turbulence of ideas colliding, reshaping, and breaking open new channels.

Here, the landscape is both real and interior. The rushing white water carves its way through darkened banks and embers of colour, suggesting the mind’s struggle to move through dense emotional terrain. The paint itself behaves like thought: layered, unsettled, and mutable. Heavy textures and abrupt tonal shifts mirror the way consciousness can surge, drag, or crash forward, sometimes with clarity, sometimes with overwhelm.

As the third passage in the sequence, Rapids marks a threshold moment—where contemplation accelerates into momentum, and where the psyche is carried not by choice but by necessity. It is a painting of transition, of being swept into deeper awareness, and of recognising the raw, ungovernable vitality at the centre of one’s inner landscape.

In this series, water becomes the architecture of the mind. Here, in its swiftest state, it reveals the urgency of thought and the beauty within its chaos.

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Janet Elizabeth Thomas is a Sydney-based artist working across painting and sculpture. Her artistic career began in 1981 when she became assistant to renowned sculptor Nicholas Georgouras. In 1984, a portrait she painted of Georgouras was selected for the inaugural Salon des Refusés exhibition.
A visit to New York in 1982 exposed Thomas to the city's contemporary art scene and broadened her artistic vision. Her enduring interest in Greek culture, language, philosophy, and history later led her to complete a Bachelor of Arts at Macquarie University, majoring in Philosophy and Ancient History.
Thomas has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, including the Eddis Glastra Gallery, Paddington (1987), the Australian Museum's WIRES exhibition (1990), and Artists Against War at Casula Powerhouse (2004). She is listed in Max Germaine's Artists & Galleries of Australia.
Following the death of Nicholas Georgouras in 2020, Thomas began carving sculptures from the remnant marble left in his studio. Using Georgouras's direct carving technique, she creates works that unite painting and sculpture through the use of marble, pigment, egg tempera, and oil. Her practice explores transformation, memory, mythology, and the origins of human artistic expression. Through both sculpture and painting, Thomas seeks to create images that resonate with the collective unconscious and speak to enduring human experiences.