OPENING NIGHT I SATURDAY the 12th of August, 6pm till 8pm
SHOWING DATES I Thursday the 3rd of August till Wednesday the 30th of August, 2023
Tom Phillips is an Adelaide-based contemporary artist with a practice spanning more than 25 years. Introducing his first solo exhibition in Newcastle “There is No Place Called Home”.
As we are in the middle of a housing crisis within this country and the rise of homeless people within our society. As an artist Tom paints this as he sees this all around him on the streets, on TV, in the newspapers and on social media as it seems there is no end to this story or crisis. His artworks speak about urban alienation, focusing on the disadvantaged people, who are powerless within our community and been on the wrong end of the sticks within our society. Tom wants to evoke a strong emotional experience between the artworks and the viewer.
As the artworks speaks about making the invisible to becoming visible around the issues of homeless people within our socially. Tom expresses their vulnerability, anxiety, and our fragile existence in this modern world. The figures are viewed as outsiders, aliens or forgotten people within our society, of which they struggle to exist in this urban jungle. Now, this might sound a bit old fashion or a naive ideology says Tom Phillips, but would like his paintings to change the world for the better and also wishes to challenge people about strong social concerns as well as showing the injustices that the underprivileged people are facing.
Drawing out the figures crudely to amplify the hardship or the human struggle within his paintings. Holding back no punches in mark making, letting the brushes do the talking. Tom chooses to use the marks as a vehicle to express his ideas in paint, using the rawness of colour to create a tension within the artworks. Tom attempts to establish a relationship between abstraction and figuration, and wrestle with the two styles on the canvas.
Never knowing what the paintings will look like until they are finished. Therefore, the process does create a tension and some kind of aggressive energy within each the artwork.