The Conversations Series: What Human Connection Looks Like on a Wall
Every piece of work I make starts the same way: with a conversation.
Not a metaphorical one. A real one — with a person, in a room, where something honest gets said and the air changes. I have been paying attention to those moments my entire life, and somewhere along the way I started trying to figure out how to put them on a surface.
The Conversations series is my most sustained attempt at that. It is the body of work I return to more than any other, the one that has been most consistently recognized — including a piece from this series that appeared in Architectural Digest's "In Focus" feature — and the one that feels most essentially mine.
This is what it is about, and how it is made.
Where the idea came from
I believe, without much qualification, that conversation is the most important thing human beings do. Not communication in the broad sense — not messaging or posting or broadcasting — but actual conversation. Two people in the same space, paying attention to each other, saying something true.
What I noticed, over years of having those conversations and watching other people have them, is that there is an energy to them that is almost visible. You can feel when a conversation is really happening — when both people are present, when something is being understood, when the exchange is producing something neither person would have arrived at alone. It has a quality, a texture, a kind of movement.
That is what I am trying to paint. Not the words. Not the people. The energy.
How the Artworks are made
Each piece in the Conversations series begins with a ground. I work primarily on museum-quality panels — rigid, archival surfaces that can hold the weight of what goes on top of them. In many pieces, I apply a base of cement, which adds physical texture and a particular quality of gray that I find beautiful as a foundation for color.
On top of that ground, I build up layers of liquid inks — waterproof, lightfast, rich with color. The inks pool and flow and interact in ways I can guide but not fully control. That unpredictability is intentional. Conversation is like that. You go in with intentions and something else comes out.
The piece builds through those layers until it reaches a certain kind of completion — not finished exactly, but full. And then I take a ink pen and begin to draw.
The lines are the conversations. They move across the surface the way dialogue does — starting somewhere, doubling back, crossing other lines, going still for a moment and then accelerating. They are not representational. They do not depict people talking. They are the energy of talking, made visible.
The result is a surface that has both density and movement. You can look at it from across a room and feel the energy. You can stand close to it and follow specific lines, trace the path of a specific exchange. Both ways of looking reward the looking.
The pieces that have sold — and what that means
A number of works from the Conversations series have sold, some of them before they were ever listed publicly.
Gifted in the Art of Conversation — the piece that appeared in Architectural Digest — was sold right after the editorial feature ran. Myleik and Amy's Conversation, The Art of Conversation, Think About Why — all sold. Aren't All Great Conversations Time Consuming — sold.
I mention this not to create urgency, though the urgency is real. I mention it because the pattern of these sales tells me something about the series and about the people who collect it. The people who buy Conversations pieces tend to be people who feel something specific in the presence of the work — not just an aesthetic response but a recognition. They know what it is about and they feel that it is true.
That is the kind of collector I love to work with, and the Conversations series tends to find them.
What is currently available
Caroline's Conversation and A Dance With Bill Murray are available now at glenyse.com/original-art. These are works on paper — intimate in scale, significant in presence. They ship framed behind UV-coated glass, ready to hang.
We Should All Be Stars II — a larger panel work — is also currently available. This piece extends the language of the Conversations series into a larger scale and brings in the cement ground and white ink line work at a level of density and complexity that the smaller paper works do not reach.
New Conversations works come out of the studio regularly, and they move quickly. If you want to be notified when new work in this series is available, subscribe to my email list at glenyse.com — that is where advance notice goes, before the website and before social media.
Commissions in the Conversations series
If you love the language of this series and want a piece made specifically for your space — your scale, your colors, the specific quality of energy you want the work to carry — a commission is the right conversation to have.
I have made commissioned Conversations pieces for homes and for commercial spaces. Each one is distinct. Each one is made in response to a specific brief and a specific place. The commission process starts with a conversation, which feels appropriate.
Email hello@glenyse.com or come to open studio on the second Saturday — the studio at the ArtsXchange is open every month, no appointment needed — and we can talk about it in person in front of the work.
Browse available art, giclée's at glenyse.com/original-art. Open studio takes place every second Saturday of the month at the ArtsXchange, 515 22nd Street South, Studio 109, St. Petersburg, FL. To get on the advance new-work list, subscribe at glenyse.com. or contact hello@glenyse.com to discuss a commission made specifically for your space. For direct inquiries, 312-725-6066.
Glenyse Thompson is a Florida-based contemporary abstract artist whose work has been featured in Designer Today, Aspire Home and Design, Architectural Digest, Southern Living, Town and Country, Design Milk, and Martha Stewart and placed in private collections and commercial spaces nationally and worldwide. She enjoys commissioning art for collectors, exhibiting art, working with brands and interior designers, and collaborating with companies on licensing opportunities.