Born and raised in central Florida before moving south to his current residence in Miami, Thomas Bils paints autobiographically in ongoing investigation into the precarious nature of the world and the banality of disaster. Reflecting on the absurdities he was accustomed to while growing up in the suburban south during the second wave opioid crisis, Thomas crafts images employing his role as the unreliable narrator to develop a fragmented reality where personal narratives intertwine with universal anxieties. Through obfuscation and semiotic sleights of hand, the viewer is refused total access to the narratives baked into the paintings and invited to instead meditate on the fragility of certainty. This encouragement towards a slow viewing reciprocates Bils’s interests in the phenomenon of noticing; where conceived assumptions melt away and a sense of jamais vu presents itself. The personal microcosm, in Bils's vision, is a delicate construct, forever on the precipice of collapse, where even the most mundane occurrences can hold profound existential significance.

Education

2017 BFA, New World School of The Arts | Miami, FL

Selected Exhibitions

2026 Group Exhibition, PAMM | Miami, FL
2026 Group Exhibition, The BASS Museum | Miami Beach, FL
2026 Group Exhibition, Vermont Studio Center | Johnson, VT
2026 Group Exhibition, Piero Atchugarry Gallery | Garzón, Uruguay

2025 Group Exhibition, NSU Art Museum | Ft. Lauderdale, FL
2025 Group Exhibition, Bakehouse Art Complex | Miami, FL
2025 Group Exhibition, Dale Zine | Miami, FL
2025 Solo Presentation @ NADA Miami (Baker–Hall) | Miami, FL
2025 Group Exhibition, Baker–Hall | Miami, FL

2024 Group Exhibition, Spinello Projects | Miami, FL
2024 Group Exhibition, Collect Bean | Online
2024      Duo Exhibition, Spinello Projects | Miami, FL
2024      Group Exhibition, Radio 28 | CDMX, Mexico
2024      Duo Exhibition, The Fores Project | London, UK
2024      Group Exhibition, Tactile Tactile Tactile | Miami, FL

2023 Group Exhibition, BWG Gallery | London, UK
2023 Group Exhibition, Oolite Arts | Miami, FL
2023 Group Presentation @ The Armory Show, Spinello Projects | NYC, NY
2023 Group Exhibition, Huxley-Parlour | London, UK
2023 Group Exhibition, Club Gallery | Miami, FL
2023 Solo Exhibition, Spinello Projects | Miami, FL

2022 Group Exhibition, Homework Gallery | Miami, FL
2022 Solo Exhibition, Dale Zine | Miami, FL
2022 Group Exhibition, Mindy Solomon Gallery | Miami, FL
2022 Group Exhibition, The Glass House | New Canaan, CT

2021 Group Exhibition, Fresh Goods Gallery | Miami, FL
2021 Group Exhibition, Collabo 7 | Miami, FL
2021 Group Exhibition, Audrey Love Gallery | Miami, FL
2021 Group Exhibition, Top Painters Top Painting | Online
2021 Solo Exhibition, NSU Art Museum | Fort Lauderdale, FL
2021 Group Exhibition, Mindy Solomon Gallery | Miami, FL

2020 Group Exhibition, Coral Gables Museum | Coral Gables, FL
2020 Group Exhibition, ConcreteSpace | Miami, FL
2020 Group Exhibition, By & For | Miami, FL
2020 Group Exhibition, Spinello Projects | Miami, FL
2020 Group Exhibition, Anderson Ranch | Snowmass Village, CO
2020 Group Exhibition, Art and Culture Center/Hollywood | Hollywood, FL

2019 Group Exhibition, Tempus Projects | Tampa, FL
2019 Group Exhibition, Collabo 6 | Miami FL
2019 Group Exhibition, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art | Gimpo, South Korea
2019 Group Exhibition, Homeless | Miami FL
2019 Group Exhibition, Juxtapoz | Miami, FL
2019 Group Exhibition, Void Projects | Miami FL

2018 Group Exhibition, Touzet Studio | Miami, FL
2018 Group Exhibition, Audrey Love Gallery | Miami, FL
2018 Solo Exhibition, &gallery | Miami, FL

Residencies

Press

2024 Issue 06: RELICS, Forever Magazine

2023 No. 166, South Issue, New American Paintings
2023 Thomas Bils Explores the Banality of Life Through Hyperrealism, Miami New Times

2022 Art for The Everyday, Art Loft PBS
2022 International Painting Annual 10, Manifest Press

2021 Press Release, NSU Art Museum
2021 No. 154, South Issue, New American Paintings
2021 Artists Panel; On Artistry and Alienation, Coral Gables Museum

2020 Alien Nations 2020, Coral Gables Museum
2020 Vol. 45, Studio Visit Magazine
2020 Portfolio Review Series, Coral Gables Museum

2019 Bakehouse Rising Vol. 3, BAC

2018 Critic’s Choice November 2018, Art Circuits
2018 Florida Boy, Brickell Magazine

Audio

2019 RCS Vol. 122, Rocking Chair Sessions

Notable Collections

NSU Art Museum
Marquez Art Projects
ICA Miami
Pérez Art Museum Miami