Introducing Tom Hackney - Included in 'Surface Tension' Our Upcoming Group Exhibition

Tom Hackney, New New York, 2008 Tom Hackney, Chess Painting No.7, 2011

Tom Hackney's geometrically abstract paintings convey the essence and feeling of his subjects rather than a literal representation, guiding the viewer to the works content through their titles. In New New York, for example, the dramatic arrangement of vertical horizontal lines as well as bright electric colours instantly communicate the dynamism, vibrancy and towering skyscrapers that encapsulate the New York landscape, one comparable to Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie. Yet like Naomi Doran (see below), Tom's work also contains a tension and ambiguity between their painterly and sculptural qualities. In certain pieces, built-up sections of plaster endow his canvases with a multi-layered quality, at other times the paint wriggles onto the frame, and again in New York York - the resolutely two-dimensional technique employed creates a dizzying and disorientating sensation of spatial depth. Whilst Tom's works represent the fundamental essense of his subjects, they also emphasise the status of paintings as something distinct and separate from nature, in accordance with the Modernist insistence that 'a picture - before being a war horse or a nude woman or some little genre scene - is essentially a flat surface covered with colours arranged in a certain order.'

To view more of Tom Hackney's work click here and for more information about our upcoming group show 'Surface Tension' at the Tokarska Gallery featuring Naomi Doran, Tom Hackney, Onya McCausland and Giulia Ricci click here