Canvas and sky: Reputed artist Andrew Thompson is also an aircraft engineer

Artist Andrew Thompson points out that by profession, he is a Licensed Aircraft Engineer and currently the Maintenance Manager for a Dubai VVIP flight operation.

- Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

"I have lived in the UAE for the past 31 years," he says. Born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, he has had a "very much of a free outdoors childhood," in Zimbabwe. A self-taught artist with no formal art training, the inspiration for much of his earlier paintings comes from the surroundings he inhabited during the extensive travelling he did due to his work as an Aircraft Engineer.

He admires man's many engineering feats from the past in machinery and architecture, and his work often reflect these muses. "I also find inspiration from the desert sands of Dubai which may seem bleak and featureless to some, but to me they are alive with shapes, shades and colour, constantly shifting and offering something new," he underlines. He says he's yet an experimentalist with his art, trying different forms, and taking inspiration from other fellow artists. He recently won second prize in the NBF (National Bank of Fujairah) art competition 2025 and is now showing some of his works at Perspectives - II group exhibition at the Capital Club, Dubai, curated by Patricia Millns, where Andrew's works are curated by Bhairavi Mistry of Noora The Divine Spark. Many of Andrews's pieces have found homes in Dubai and abroad.

He speaks to Gulf Today

Which are the unusual places that have inspired you as an artist?