Shot of a painting before I finished it.
Everything has been done before – all I am doing is regurgitating chewed up bits of inspiration.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
Albert Einstein
Archive for Art
No, I’m not, I’m with the Underhills.
The Observatory – Catacombs
I recently had the honor of contributing some art work to an amazing album by The Observatory from Singapore.
Catacombs is an amazingly dark and atmospheric multilayer-ed rock album, I’m not even sure if that is the correct description or not but I have been listening to this non stop since I received the demos.
Pre Ordering is up for the record here – http://www.theobservatory.com.sg/ I am really excited to see this one as an LP.
CATACOMBS by The Observatory Trailer1 from The Observatory on Vimeo.
A big thanks to Keith Utech for making it happen so i could be part of the artwork of this record and doing such a beautiful and clean job of the layout and design.
Below is a description of the band from another website. (http://comesingapore.com/events/view/11916/the-observatory-catacombs-the-concert)
The heart and soul of The Observatory is in its constant reinvention. With each release, the members have persisted in their experimental take on the pop songform. In 10 years, The Observatory has gone from folk electronica to prog to avant rock, approaching a more primal, new dark wave sound with their fifth album, CATACOMBS. Putting preoccupations about genre aside, The Observatory explores music that’s texturally complex, viscerally emotional and splintering in its bleakness. A study in delusion, insanity and obsession, CATACOMBS provokes and inspires in a deeply enigmatic way. Even at its coldest and most abstract, it is human to the core.
Tessellation Time.
Taking a break from doing my yearly filing…….
Having a little fun with some tessellations.
My apologies to anyone who has emailed me in the last two months, my current response time for emails is about 4-6 weeks as I handle all of this personally and it takes a long time to work my way through them between drawing and tattooing.
thank you for your continuous support – Thomas.
Clearly this lake was some sort of holy place for the people who lived here at the time.
Found this old roll of film of some skulls I photographed in 2006.
Stages of Absence
Below is a selection paintings i created for the Origins of Solitude Exhibition, these didn’t make it into the gallery because we felt that the compostion we chose was correct, so I have hung these in my space at work – the first two have sold already but the rest are available.
Untitled Title, 8×10 ink, acrylic and graphite on paper. SOLD
Lunar Void, 10 x 14, ink, acrylic, charcoal and graphite on paper. SOLD
Three Stages of Absence – 001, 8×10, ink, acrylic and charcoal on paper.
Three Stages of Absence – 002, 8×10, ink, acrylic and charcoal on paper.
Three Stages of Absence – 003, 8×10, ink, acrylic and charcoal on paper.
Butterfly Decay, 11 x 15, ink, acrylic and charcoal on paper.
Thank you again to every one who has been so kind to support my work, this exhibition has been alot of fun and a great experience.
Nepenthes have decided to keep it on display untill mid – March. Thank you Abdul!
307 West 38th St.
New York, NY 10018
212 643 9540
shop@nepenthesny.com
Mexican Wolf and Inspiration
I did this fun wolf head on an awesome guy from Mexico, I drew my inspiration for the piece from my friend David M Cook http://dmcook.tumblr.com/
Alot of his work is wildly colored and beautiful detailed – but he has also be making a series of woodcut/etched tattoo drawings, i really like his take on this style.
When he isn’t being a pervert drawing dirty pictures he makes amazing art, he never stops creating – really inspiring. (some of his work below)
more of his work after the jump – http://dmcook.tumblr.com/
Coming soon…….
for more info please go to www.artifactpublishing.com
These two print editions were created as part of my current exhibition at Nepenthes NYC – Origins of Solitude. They will be going on sale at a random time this weekend on www.artifactpublishing.com
Thank you.
Origins of Solitude – Opening Night
It is impossible for me to express my gratitude to all the people who came out Tuesday night to see the opening, it was overwhelming, below I am going to try and give a brief overview of the work Exhibited in Origins of Solitude, thank you for looking.
I took a few pictures of the art before it was hung, they aren’t great shots but you’ll get the idea. This was my first solo show and I found it really difficult to create a full and varied body of work, in total I created 30 individual pieces for the show but in the end we narrowed it down to 24. I gave 1 to Abdul for helping and curating the exhibition, he was and is the man who made this happen. the other 5 I have hung at the shop and will do so until they sell (I will post pictures of them later on). I think the larger works where the most challenging, I took the approach of using them to create atmosphere adding strength to the smaller pieces.
These first three where painted with acrylic and ink, with a little acetone xerox transferring for pattern layout. they are on l’aquarelle 1198lb 40 x 60″ cold press paper. (I haven’t put any watermarks on the images so you get to fully see them, please feel free to re post them but also please give credit where appropriate, thanks!)
Celestial Horizon A – Ink, Acrylic and Xerox on Paper
40 x 60 inches
Celestial Horizon B – Ink, Acrylic and Xerox on Paper
40 x 60 inches
Celestial Horizon C – Ink, Acrylic and Xerox on Paper
40 x 60 inches
These next three are 24 x35 Arches 300lb cold pressed paper, they were created after looking at Shuzo Takiguchi’s Decalcomanias. I had been working with and looking at decalcomanias for a while but upon seeing his work I was really moved. I subsequently used them as a starting point for this exhibition – the title Origins of Solitude comes from one of his pieces, Origin of Solitude, 1962.
Origins of Solitude A – Ink and Acrylic on Paper
24×35
Origins of Solitude B – Ink and Acrylic on Paper
24×35
Origins of Solitude C – Ink and Acrylic on Paper
35×24
These next three I created as an experiment, I wanted to work with the concept of creating some images that looked like fabric patterns, so I had a series of digitally created tessellating patterns giclee printed onto 62×42 arches cold pressed 180lb paper. I then hand colored and disrupted them to give an abstract overlay.
Abstract Horizons A – Hand colored single edition giclee print
42×62
Abstract Horizons B – Hand colored single edition giclee print
42×62
Abstract Horizons C – Hand colored single edition giclee print
42×62
The previous large paintings were used to complement the latter framed paintings, these are all of varying size (I forgot to measure before hanging the show…)
For these I used a varied selection of combined techniques, decalcomania printing, acetone xerox transfers, acrylic mediums and sumi ink washes. All these were framed in antique frames from the 1920′s-40′s, collected over the past year – I used these frames to give the individual paintings a rougher yet more complete feel.
There were also two framed prints from an edition I will be selling on Artifact very soon, these framed ones where the first in the editions and are for sale at the gallery.
Rorshach Decalcomania Hexahedron Letterpress
17.5 x24.5 Edition of 20 signed and numbered
Rorshach Decalcomania Mandala Silkscreen
22 x 30 Edition of 100 signed and numbered
The Exhibtion will be on display untill the middle of Febuary, for any info please contact the gallery -
Nepenthes New York
307 West 38th St.
New York, NY 10018
212 643 9540
shop@nepenthesny.com
And last but not least here are some shots from the opening night taken by the talented KOKI SATO – www.kokisato.viewbook.com
Thank you again to every one who came out, and to all the guys at Nepenthes who made this possible and worked to make it such a great night.
