About
Thomas W.H. Compton (b.1996, UK) is an artist, illustrator and printmaker working between traditional and contemporary print technologies. His practice explores how silkscreen and expanded printmaking processes can move an image beyond its conventional association with flat reproduction and enter sculptural space. He likes to view the movement of an image into material surface as a translation, one that elicits the tacit quality of its subject matter. While grounded in the lineage of printmaking, he questions the limitations historically imposed on the medium, expanding it into a dimensional and materially responsive field. Through this engagement with surface, structure, and process, he considers making as a form of thinking, where material interaction becomes a way to reflect on the enduring traces of the human experience.
Exhibitions/Print Fairs
2025 Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Conference, London, UK
2025 RCA Master’s Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2025 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair Summer Show, Woolwich Works, London, UK
2024 Weald Contemporary, ‘Under the Laurels’, West Sussex, UK
2023 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, Woolwich Works, London, UK
2023 Longest Night Fijuk Marknad, Gothenburg, SE
2022 World Illustration Awards, Somerset House, London, UK
2020 All Stars Exhibit PDP Conference, Novi Sad, SRB
2019 World Illustration Awards, Somerset House, London, UK
2019 Shake, Bristol, UK
Awards
2024/2025 The Deputy Vice Chancellor’s UK Scholarship, Royal College of Art
2023 Collector Highlight, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair
2022 Longlisted Artist, World Illustration Awards
2021 Honourable Mention, 3x3 Magazine Awards
2019 Shortlisted Artist, World Illustration Awards
Residencies
2023 Harvey Lloyd Screens, Wadhurst, UK
2020-23 Ocean Studios, Plymouth, UK
2019-20 Ochre Print Studio, Guildford, UK
Collaborations & Commissions
2024 Penguin Random House. Vintage Classics. ‘War and Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy
2022 Stay Creative Co. AW22. ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’
2022 Moseley Folk & Arts Festival
2020 Stay Creative Co. SS20. ‘The Wicker Man’
Press / Publications
2026 BBC ‘The Big Deal’
2026 The Guardian’s 100 Best Novels of All Time: War and Peace
2025 Royal College of Art: Online Profile
2024 Weald Contemporary: In Conversation
2023 Pressing Matters: Issue 21 ‘Nowt Stranger than Folk’
2022 Stay Creative Co.: ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’