My work an expanding practice in paint, drawing and printmaking. I engage with themes of nationalism, capitalism and notions about injustice in both personal and colonial histories. However, politics serves only to ignite a process where personal labour, love and autonomous reflection all index in the medium. Painting history as fluid medium. Painting as embodiment of individuality.
In a recent series this theme is explored through representations of the wild, sun beaten Australian landscape represented through a 19th century European landscape painting lens, ushering notions of history, storytelling, sustainability and the impact of development today. In other recent work, ‘Heroes’ of the British Empire, Meatships, modern political conflict, and historical family photographs all form different series of paintings. I want my work to encourage multiple readings, to be unsettling at times so the audience goes through a process of interpretation and unravelling with various entry levels.
In my studio, image-making initiates an intimate journey, eliciting recognisable, subconscious, and buried associations. Representational images provoke associations but also encapsulate the aftermath of the struggle to create the work and the subjective struggle contained within the medium. This temporality of the art-making process permeates, reflecting not only my studio practice but that of history itself.
Recent artistic accomplishments include Finalist in the Visual Art Open 2023, shortlisted for New Contemporaries 2023, shortlisted for John Moores Painting Prize 2023 & 2018, Highly Commended in the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait prize 2021, Tom’s work featured in ‘Artists Responding To…’ magazine, Spring, Issue 6, 2023.