Tommy Perry

ARTIST STATEMENT

“I’m interested in exploring my own relationship to society, culture, the past and its nostalgia, and in documenting my own interpretation of the human experience. But what even is “my” culture? What is American culture at all, really? It doesn’t appear to be real; it appears to be made up. Each day it becomes more and more difficult to navigate the world without a slave device in our pockets, keeping us glued to our screens while the mainstream media presents a simulated and flawed, binary version of our society that truly resembles a clown show. Degradation, demoralization, and fear-mongering everywhere you turn, and then they sell you fake hope in a pretty package or a catchy pharmaceutical jingle. I just simply want to make art that isn’t any of that.”

ARTIST BIO

I was born at home in 1981, a home which doubled as a steel rule die shop and a sign shop. This meant a creative childhood filled with machinery, wood and metal scraps, vinyl lettering stickers, drafting tools, a variety of different mediums at my disposal, and music-- lots of music.

I've been a professional Steel Rule Die maker since 1997, self-employed since 2007, serving primarily the printing industry but also leather, textile, packa...

I’ve actively thought of myself as an artist from a very young age, I’ve never really wanted to be anything else.

As a child, I participated in a now defunct, week long, community summer program called Art Shop all eligible years and performed at the annual Art Festival which followed it. I’ve attended this art festival every year of my life which has had a deep influence on my connection to the arts.

I took private lessons for a year at 13 from a local professional artist as most of my school elective hours at this time were filled with band and orchestra classes.

At the Highschool level, I excelled in every art class available. When I ran out of art classes, I dropped out at 16 to get my GED in order to continue my art education at our community college.

At 17, in 1998, I completed a handful of beginning college level classes but the birth of my first child and the many complications involved with that forced me to put it on hold.

In 2009-10 I took two more semesters at our community college and it was in an oil painting class that I finally discovered a love for painting. Prior to this, my technique and style development came primarily through the portrait as a subject using oil pastels, charcoal, graphite, or ink as m...