Tom Bolles

EDUCATION B.A., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 1975

 

As Maurice Denis wrote in 1890, "Remember, that a picture, before it is a picture of a battle horse, a nude woman, or some story, is essentially a flat surface covered in colors arranged in a certain order."

My approach to making art is in keeping with this Formalist theory. For thirty years I have produced art with a focus on light, color, surface, and geometry. Light is probably the salient component of my artwork. In the early 90’s I created sculptures incorporating neon. Even those of my paintings from the last decade that were predominately black have a glow to them. In 2021 I decided to dive headlong into light and color with a series of paintings with a brilliant palette.

I am a product of the 60’s. As a teenager I was fascinated with op art and psychedelic art. My recent paintings are initially designed with Photoshop and then extensively reworked using acrylics combining the reductive structure of my earlier artwork with the fluorescent colors of the 60’s.