The Pure Jopp

Alphabet Woman

ot content with being a highly acclaimed, globe-trotting photographer, Greystones’ very own Ian Thullier found a whole new way to express himself during those lockdowns.

By becoming a highly acclaimed, globe-trotting painter.

The flash, multi-talented, stupidly-handsome feck.

For reasons of space and jealousy, we won’t bore you with all the photography awards, exhibitions, books and back-slaps – you can check all that out here.

Instead, let’s jump straight to the official spiel on The Artist Formerly Known As Ian Thullier…

Painting under his middle name of Jopp, Ian Thullier is a self-taught artist who has been working for decades and whose work has repeatedly been exhibited and sold. The most recent of these exhibitions was in Montreal Canada during April 2022.

Ian sees his painting as complementing the photography, feeling that his expertise behind a camera has armed him with the confidence to stand behind a bush and wield it, an understanding of aesthetics, and a useful familiarity with the fundamentals which underpin the commercially-successful mounting of any exhibition.

Initially, as a teenager, he employed pencils and water-colours to depict garden birds. These works were eagerly acquired for cash by his teacher, clearly a pedagogue with a good eye for an investment. As his proficiency and confidence grew, in time Ian began to experiment with oils and acrylics.

And today he often works with inks and pastels since he’s intrigued by the possibilities when they’re blended and because he feels that the outcomes give vent to his need to express himself.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when for a multiplicity of reasons including the frustrations of lockdown he was under duress, Ian’s coping mechanism sparked the production of bold and large-scale abstract / surreal / figurative works in acrylics on board. The themes he’s embraced have been conversations and communication, miscommunication and music, textures and tachyons, friendships and females. Typically two or more of these themes might be concurrent, for example touching on the impact of their biological clocks – and what they have to say about this impact – on women who are friends.

Ian is particularly proud of this development, realising that the resultant works not only encapsulate a meld of his conscious and unconscious understanding of the world around him but comprise objects d’art which, because of their scale, are conversation-pieces that are ideal for filling spaces within opulent private homes and bustling public venues.

Ever-conscious of commercial imperatives and a reputation to protect, Ian has been reluctant to concentrate on painting until he was absolutely certain that his art was as deserving of success as his photography. But that time has now, he feels, arrived.

You can check out Ian Jopp Thullier’s paintings right about here, and follow on Instagram over here. You can also check out his photography journey here.