7613 Drawing

"I experience myself as a builder of imaginative two-dimensional architectural worlds." In 1985, Tom graduated from his teacher training in Tilburg. He then followed Monumental Design and Painting lessons at the Art Academy St. Joost in Breda. To his day he teaches Art at a school in Haarlem. His almost monochromatic chalk drawings in many black gradation with the open white surfaces and lines are usually grand and monumental of nature. With layered perspective lines as a result. Consequently, there are all sorts of interesting movements in the composition which move both within and outside the paper. The well-chosen strong full color surfaces complement the composition. Sources of inspiration are urban, industrial landscapes and human forms. Tom has been working and living in an apartment for three year. It is very light because of the large windows, he draws on the large table and uses the wall behind it. It is amazing that in the sixties flats (a very orderly room) he can make such large monumental drawings. In his previous home, when he still had his children in a much less space, he drew along the hallway or in the small garden shed. A not an ideal situation. I ask him if his work situation is also influenced his way of drawing. He shows me his color palette, next to a ruler and eraser, consists of a pair of black and white chalk species. Black bowl with chalk looks like a framed Japanese monogram. Materials that you can easily carry anywhere, an advantage when you've had to do it over the years with a not too large studio. Because he works as an artteacher three and a half days he often draws in the evening and in the weekends. Tom continues: "I love industrial forms such as blast furnaces in IJmuiden and its complicated tubing and its greatness. Drawing with chalk and different types of paper allows a direct way of working, I can quickly work on a drawing for the drying of a medium is not necessary and the changes can be made quickly. I love this drawing technique along with the size of of the paper. It gives me a physical challenge. My work can be called rhythmic and music helps with that, as Steve Reich, Tool and Portishead but also Shostakovich for example. I love music with different complex sound layers in both instrumental and vocal, a similar stratification I see in my work.