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  n Thompson’s oil paintings of neon signage, he renders wires, rivets and other minutia because of his appreciation for how these hand-made signs are built. This may be a result of the many years he spent as an equipment engineer in Silicon Valley prior to earning his MFA from San Jose State University.
He is primarily drawn to older, unique signs that have somehow avoided the wrecking ball. Thompson says, “I see these signs as historically and emotionally charged metaphors for beating the odds, when newer is usually perceived as better. When I render rust, faded paint or broken neon, I’m imbuing my paintings with a sense of humanity and history.”
Text and words are prominent in most of Thompson’s paintings and he often amplifies their intrinsic ambiguity by aggressively cropping. This results in disjointed text and words that confront the viewer, begging to be read or deciphered.
Thompson finds his subjects while exploring the forgotten back streets of cities. This discovery process, coupled with being in the presence of these signs, is important for Thompson’s method which coalesces into paintings that are geometrically, contextually, and visually interesting; paintings which reveal a hidden beauty in the mundane and often overlooked.
Thompson’s work can be found in private collections throughout the U.S. and in the permanent collections of: The San Jose Museum of Art, The California Museum, Sacramento, The Nevada Museum, and The de Saisset Museum of Art at Santa Clara University.
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