Around 2012 and up to today I’ve been creating this series of works that have definite architectural references and applications. My previous artworks were getting bigger and bigger, but I didn’t have the studio space to keep increasing the scale of my work. My solution was to create models or maquettes, smaller scale but with the idea that the model represented a work that was by intention sizably larger. The resulting works, what I call Constructions, could be finished art as they existed but also smaller versions of projects that could rise to an architectural scale. Most of the works have a wider bottom frame or shelf. I hoped that viewers could imagine themselves walking down that path passing a massive mural above with “rooms” at floor level to hold sculpture. These models could someday be lobby interiors or the exterior of some large building. The small scale afforded me the ability to dream and play and led inevitably to some larger scale artworks. This series includes a wide variety of scale, from smaller 12 inch wide constructions to a few reaching 15 feet in width. I continue to add to this series of works.
Line Circle Square
This collection of reductive formalist paintings, constructions, and zips contain a lifetime of exploring the geometry of creativity and culture. Each constructed painting is a world unto itself and feels more like a Bauhaus stage set anticipating its actors’ arrival than a static object hanging on the wall. These are seemingly maquettes for grand gestures and the giant zips have allowed Tom to take the work outside to play with architecture. The buildings become his ground and the zip is the solid line where the dialogue begins between the two forms he is calling forth.
Meg Linton
2016
