Tom Henderson Smith
Penzance, Cornwall
Tom Henderson Smith
St Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall
My preferred painting medium is acrylic gel on canvas. I specify gel rather than simply acrylic because translucency is a very important aspect of my approach to colour. Another key aspect for me is systematic mixture and for this I employ what I call my thinking palette on which I've found I can keep colours fresh for months on end by placing the palette in a damp box between sessions (I use a roller tray with a piece of perspex over it). I also use another mixing surface which gets scrubbed clean after each day's work once I've saved any partly used mixtures. For both my palettes I prefer a white melamine surface. With acrylic paint I find that I can readily place colour over colour, an aspect of the process that is important to me and I find that this facilitates a sense of the painting beginning to develop a life of its own, a life of interacting colours and the building up of textures.
A recent exhibition that I called In The Ocean Light focused on the ambient light from the nearby Atlantic in the area where I live and what is guiding my approach to image making towards my next show in the spring of 2010 is a fascination with all those aspects of landscape that suggest human presence. Examples of both can be seen on my website.
Works Exhibited
- The Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, 2011:
- Cat No 90: "Peacock Summer" 99x99cms
- Cat No 91: "Hot Day in the Backstreets" 53x53cms
- Obsidian Art, 2008:
- Cat No 70: "Winter Hillside, Tregeseal" 55 x 80 cms
- Cat No 71: "Salt Blasted Tree, Tregeseal" 45 x 80
- Cat No 72: "Across Porthmeor" 57 x 47
- Cat No 73: "Salt, Sea & Sail" 32 x 43 cms
- Ludlow Assembly Rooms, 2007:
- Cat No 102: "Down-wind"
- Cat No 103: "Reaching Across"
- Cat No 104: "Quayside"