Tom Bolles
TOM BOLLES
About the Artist
“Tom Bolles characterizes his art as being about the materials, the finishes, and the colors. Influenced by color field painting and op art, Tom Bolles approaches his work with an emphasis on light; each painting glows from within its minimalist but dimensional composition.
Bolles’ recent art all starts out on his computer, using Photoshop. The computer serves as his sketch pad, an efficient way to explore several ideas for paintings through trial and error, refining the better results and laying out the design. He then applies multiple layers of translucent paint with a brush, palette knife, and spray gun. The majority of the paint is applied using a brush, although spraying is also sometimes employed to blend one color into another. His goal is that the finished work has a lot of depth, an immaculate finish, and luminosity.
Tom Bolles has been creating art all his life, receiving his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. His father was an architect and the owner of a contemporary art gallery and his mother was talented at drawing and sculpting, so art was ever present in his early life.
Over the years, Bolles’ work has transitioned from geometric abstraction paintings, to sculpture using neon, sheet metal, and resin, to monochromatic acrylic and tinted resin paintings. However, for the past several years Bolles has been synthesizing all of the techniques and knowledge he acquired over the decades to create his current art style, which aims to “attain an indefinable and elusive balance of color, light and texture.”
Although he is frequently coming up with something new and different, there is a common thread in each series of paintings, sculptures, and prints: the influences of op art, minimalism, and color field painting in all Bolles’ work from over the decades. In his world they intersect and overlap.”
“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.”
Tom Bolles’ most recent exhibition is being featured at
Five Walls Gallery Nov 2 - Nov 19, 2022
119-121 Hopkins St. Level 1
Footscray, Australia, 3011
Bolles’ work will also be exhibited at
Andrea Schwartz Gallery Feb 8 - March 16, 2023
545 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
