Tom Blake: holding leaves (index).

Tom Blake’s practice draws on fragmented moments, looped imagery and recurring motifs as potential sites for contemplating the psychological, architectural and technological frameworks that surround us.

With drawing as a starting point, holding leaves (index) sees momentary gestures, allegorical forms and recurring motifs fragmented, re-composed and repeated across the space. Viewed together, themes of opacity, time, disintegration, touch, reflection and the potential for the chaotic within apparent moments of stillness, emerge across the works.

Tom is an exciting artist to watch. The seeming simplicity of his compositions bely an acute sensitivity to material, form, and space. — Sarah Wall, PICA Curator

Portrait by Jacquie Manning, courtesy of Parramatta Artists’ Studios.
Installation view: holding leaves (index), N.Smith Gallery, Sydney.
holding (loop / index), 2022

cyanotype, artist-made brass frame

41 x 31 cm

SOLD

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Installation view: holding leaves (index), N.Smith Gallery, Sydney.
The allegorical forms, gestures and notations that recur across this exhibition fall apart in constellations (holding leaves) and we are left to draw our own connections within the residue of disintegrated lines, scattered like seeds across the ground. This piece also marks the final step in the ongoing process of repetition and fragmentation at the centre of the artist’s practice.
constellations (holding leaves), 2022

cyanotype, artist-made brass frame

51 x 41 cm

SOLD

Click image for further info.
Installation view: holding leaves (index), N.Smith Gallery, Sydney.
- holding leaves (index) draws on the writing of Clarice Lispector, in particular Água Viva (‘living water’) and the attempts at holding on to an instant of time. This is echoed in the moving-image work index / silt – a pair of looping videos that commence together, however, as they refresh at slightly different rates, the frames soon diverge and meet each other in different moments throughout the day, creating myriad versions within this small fragment of the final seconds of the 1986 film The Beekeeper.
Tom’s works carry a certain enigmatic quality. I love the way the shimmering forms and lines reappear and materialise across various surfaces. — Sarah Wall, PICA Curator
chair (bo bardi) II, 2022

hand-etched de-silvered mirror, light box,

artist-made aluminium frame

40 x 30 cm

$2,800

Click for more info.
Tom Blake's hand-etched de-silvered mirrors draw on themes of opacity, repetition and disintegration. By scoring the back of each mirror panel with etching tools, the three layers that make up the reflection (paint, copper, silver) are removed — revealing drawings made from fragments of light.
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BIO.

Tom’s work has been presented nationally and internationally, including Artspace; KNULP; Firstdraft, SPRING1883, Carriageworks (all Sydney); Institute of Modern Art (IMA) (Brisbane); the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Fremantle Biennale (Perth); the Antarctic Pavilion (Italy) and Tenjinyama (Japan). Tom has undertaken residencies with Fremantle Arts Centre, PICA, North Metro TAFE (all Perth); Tenjinyama Art Studio (Japan); Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM) Chiloé (Chile); and Parramatta Artists’ Studios (Sydney). Tom was a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize, Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Fishers’ Ghost Art Award, the Blake Prize and awarded a Clitheroe Foundation Emerging Artist Mentorship. In 2021, A.P.E published BAUXIDE, an artist book by Tom and Dominique Chen, commissioned as part of the Lost Rocks (2017–21) series. Tom’s work is held in museum, public and private collections.

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Tom Blake: holding leaves (index).: N.Smith Gallery

View additional works by Tom here

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JOIN Tom'S PREVIEW LIST HERE

BIO.

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