Venue address: The Crypt Gallery, Ford Road, Arundel, BN18 9EA
Tom Hammick is an award winning, Sussex based painter and printmaker. As Julian Bell wrote in Wall Window World, his book on Tom Hammick: "The world is always more than you can see" This is an apt description of Tom Hammick’s paintings and prints, they are bold and joyful but at the same time they look at subjects which could be seen as tender or anxious.
After an art history degree, Tom Hammick studied fine art at Camberwell in the late 80’s. It was the time of the YBA’s and the newly opened Saatchi Gallery. However at Camberwell, they still taught a very British style of figurative painting as set out by Coldstream in the 40’s and Euan Uglow, in the 60’s. At this time Tom was also influenced by Matisse (for his use of color and textile detail).
There are seemingly many conflicts in his early art learning and career. Just before completing his degree, Tom traveled to Nova Scotia on an exchange to study art for four months, this would provide input for future works in the years to follow, as well as many other trips to the region.
Tom Hammick settled in East Sussex, where he has a studio, but he also has two in London for painting and printmaking. Like many painter/printmakers the two mediums feed off each other as subjects painted, subsequently become prints, and vice versa. The prints are mostly woodcuts and etchings, and Tom Hammick likes to challenge himself and take risks. Similarly with etchings and dry points, Tom adds other techniques, such as chin colle, aquatint, roulette, etc. In this way he can achieve variable edition where each print in the edition is different from the others, in some cases very different.
It is no surprise that Tom Hammick has won many awards for his original printmaking, including the V&A Prize at the International print biennale, in 2016. Tom has been artist in residence at both the ENO and Glyndebourne, for whom he created a series of woodcuts for each of their operas in their 75th anniversary year in 2009. As well as his passion for opera, Tom Hammick also looks at poetry in his work, and in 2018 started a series covering Wordsworth and later Coleridge to illustrate Adam Adam Nicolson’s book: The Making of Poetry.
Another area of interest for Tom is the environment and the fragile world around us, as in his Geocentric series of dry points and later Tangled Bank where he invites us to look closely at the hedgerows – teeming with life in its own eco system. Tom describes his work as a metaphor to explore an imaginary and mythological dreamscape.
Tom’s paintings and prints are in many private, public and corporate collections, including The British Museum, V&A, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, The Towner, Brighton Museum, Pallant House, Deutsche Bank, the Yale Centre for British Art and the library of Congress, in Washington DC.
We have had the privilege of showing his work since 2004, and are pleased to be able to share this large collection and range of Hammick’s editions with you in this Gallery Trail and Festival exhibition.
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Email: james@zimmerstewart.co.uk
Tel: 07901 677933