I started this and then lost it. Tom is a very fine landscape and cityscape painter. He is terrific all around. But the new paintings up on his site are all landscapes and cityscapes and mixtures of the two. He doesn't really need a particular level of abstraction, nor does he use a specific kind of color. He follows the motif. He is really very good with early evening cars on a super highway. They and their lights blur wonderfully, while the nearby higher level plants on the edge of the cut into which the highway is going are quite naturalistic in color and detail. They aren't moving, and they have only natural light on them. This caring for specificities of light and degree of conventional figuration which he sees changing from place to place can make very mundane subjects overtly poetic, to their credit.
I didn't tell you that he studied with Stanley and that Jeremy Long first gave me his name, he and Jeremy were classmates.
It was a pleasure to discover him for myself, because he has already developed in oparticular and personal ways and he is another really good artist bucking the tide of the establioshment and its say so,
Here is the url: http://www.tom-tomc.com/
Eventually I am going to write about the MUMOA and the Serra show and the rest of it. Serra probably produces the most experiential art which I have problems with. A sculptor friend of mine called it "his Schtick", And in all fairness, it is at least that.
Love,
Gabriel
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