Tom Holmes
Tom Holmes mounted their first solo museum show Temporary Monument in 2013 at the Kunsthalle Bern. Their work has been included in exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Contemporary Art Biennial, Sélestat, France; Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden and the Whitney Museum at Altria, New York. Work resides in the public collections of Albright-Knox, FRAC Bourgogne, Stiftung Kunsthalle Bern, and The Frances Young Tang Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College.
Um, well, can an artwork be timeless without, at some point, being timely? My aspirations seem to straddle such a conundrum. In practice I’m really trying to show up, in this moment, observing phenomena as it is and not as I fancy it should be. That said, paintings as objects in the Western tradition, are often flexing some long-reaching ambition to speak to an unknown future audience. I mean, in the studio, it rarely comes to mind. There is a freighting amount of freedom while the thing is wet. The subject of mortality seems a sine qua non of this pesky human condition, no? Metaphor, however, the spoon-full-o-sugar I’m using here, has come under attack in decades, centuries, past. I best not play clairvoyant. The maker is always in a blind spot.
Hi Tom, tell us about your background. How and when did you first start to paint?
The Gospel truth tis I never once made a painting in Art school. I took the one required painting class fr Peter Saul, refused to paint, and he still passed me. Have to give him props. Mine was a very conceptual, bookish, program and I swallowed the dematerialized rhetoric wholesale. I made my first oil painting only about three years ago, no lie. I kept running into the bankruptcy of the conceptual model and within the museum-experience I became enamered with what painted images can do, transmit. As a studio discipline painting is so much more autonomous that waiting around for a good idea or the institutional gig to actualize the work. One arrives in the studio w a task at hand, and that hand is remarkably free for the length the paint is wet, at least.
What is your process like? How do you begin to work?
I wake w/o an alarm. My mornings are quite lazy, scrolling through Instagram and the like. I’m a real image magpie, more screenshots than I’ll admit to. By noon I disconnect and head to studio, a half-hour away in a lil college town. There’s no internet, no music, no nothing, nothing to do but paint. I can’t really sustain the practice for more than a few hours at a time, so there is a sense of condensed activity in the studio. Though I keep thinking the works are going to veer into abstraction the recent work has become quite tight, near photo-realistic. I’d love to be the character that works on several painting at a time, but I just ain’t. I paint a piece till its complete or abandoned before beginning the next. I head back the woods before sundown, meditate, maybe watch an episode of Drag Race. LOL that’s my life. Most days I think I live the good life. Not everyday, mind you, but most.
What does your artwork represent?
Eh, I don’t much like the question. There is this long-standing and pointless debate around Representational vs. Abstract painting. And, I should admit my historic allegiance is to abstraction, but I don’t think you’d guess looking at my work. I find the divisions ineffectual and limiting. Often the subject of a work feels like it arrives just outside, or at the edge of my agency. Now, that sounds awfully mystical, but I’m busy attempting to make work that transmits an indefiniteness via metaphor. Metaphor is a tough sell. To say Str8-faced the Powderpuf Girls are the Fates, a halfgallon milk jug is singledom, a Chevy El Camino is infinity, -it takes some cojones. So I just quietly put the object back on the shelf and, fingers crossed, the viewer makes the most of em.
Describe a real-life situation that inspired you.
Well, not to sound priggish, but I still giggle at the saying “Inspiration is for amateurs.” Ya know, a 101 things may catch my interest in a given day, but to stay aware of all the lil nothing moments, the pauses, the silences -thats really were its at. Keeping at the task. Keeping it on the level, is full time j.o.b. I’d be happy to be rid of the bohemian myth, the artist struck by a fit of manic Inspiration (eye roll). I’m really trying to show up, in this moment, observing phenomena as it is -not as I fancy it should be.
How has the city you live and work in influenced you and the art you create?
About a decade ago I left Brooklyn to live on a Radical Faerie commune in rural TN, USA. I’ve lived a few lives since leaving the city, but I remain deep in the backwoods. Only occasionally haunting NYC or Berlin, to smell the attitudes. I never stay so long as to feel at home. There is a time to savvy-up on all the Art World chatter, and there is a time to retreat into the studio and do the damn work. Undoubtedly, my career has suffered a bit, having left the city, but my interior-life, my soul, heals in the quiet. Never so alone as you are in a crowd
