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Tom Perkinson
Artist's Statement
My Impressionist paintings are created from my imagination.
I paint intuitively. For me, painting is a process
of discovering a truth. I know it with a certainty
when I arrive in that place of truth, and there I
can exist in harmony and at peace with myself and
my world. The journey is always a mystery, and always
filled with the excitement of discovering the unknown.
However, I am not painting a particular location,
but rather, I wish to evoke the feeling or spirit
of a place. I paint the hillside, and I visualize
children running down that hillside; then I paint
those children. I make the landscape stand on its
own before I introduce the figures, somewhat like
building a stage and then bringing on the actors.
The subject matter is usually narrative in nature,
in that I allude to a relationship between the figures
and I lover to paint the image of the mother and child.
In these paintings, my goal is to establish a convincing
image of life’s simple times. By simple times,
I mean the day to day activities that make up our
lives, those things that we cherish and hold dear.
This is the fabric of which our childhood memories
are made. I like to portray holiday scenes, vacations,
Sundays, celebrations, reunions, the theater, beaches,
parks, oceans, streams, rivers, calming rains, foggy
weather, first snows, and children playing. I will
also emphasize that my subject matter is romantic,
idealistic, and speaks of light spirited, carefree
times. These sentiments are always included.
My mind seems to be like a library of pictures. I
only have to make a few marks on the canvas or paper
and I see many directions in which I can go. Of course,
I must choose one direction and go with it. As a youth
I took great enjoyment in studying the work of my
favorite painters. Anyone who looks at my work can
see a definite influence of the French Impressionists.
When I was a teenager growing up in rural Indiana,
I studied all the French Impressionists who were showcased
in the only art book in our high school library. Fortunately,
this book was in color, and it was very large. I trained
myself to identify each ar5tist by the style of his
or her paintings. Then I would ask my friends to pen
the book to any page and I would proceed to talk about
that artist. I always had a lot to say, and the Impressionists
were my favorites.
After leaving high school and beginning my secondary
studies, I was introduced to other great painters
and my interests changed. I began to identify more
with the early American painters and the scenes they
created. Some of my favorite artists were Homer, Sergeant,
William Merrit Chase, Potthast, and the painters in
the Boston School. Particularly important to me were
the early painters of southern Indiana who painted
the landscape in which I grew up; painters like T.C.
Steele, Vawter, Schultze and Forsythe. When I would
see one of their paintings as a young adult I could
visualize walking into the painting and I could feel
the warmth of a summer day or the coolness of an evening’s
summer shower. I have always been fascinated with
these artists and I love their work. I guess it is
a natural that when I paint, a bit of all of them
is with me.
Painting is my chosen method of communicating with
the world. I have done it nearly every day of all
of my life. I know I am a success when my collectors
tell me how deeply my paintings move them. I paint
scenes where I have been and where I would like to
go. In my paintings I celebrate the beauty and innocence
of life.
My hope is that my collectors will discover something
new within themselves each time they view my paintings.
Then the paintings will never grow old. They will
be in a constant state of Becoming.
Tom Perkinson
August 2004
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