About
I am Tom Halsall, I paint human bodies. I actively interrogate what a human body is. Are we only corporeal beings? Or does the human extend beyond the finite limits of flesh and bone. Are we also our economy, our culture, our wars?
I posit that the super structure that is our contemporary society and the sub-structures that inhabit it have an undeniable impact upon us. However, these structures and mechanisms are us, our constructs are an extension of ourselves. I intend to articulate this through the medium of paint.
To do this I warp, distort, and merge the human body. I attempt for my works to be ethereal, linking my work to the metaphysical body.
With research firmly based in how history, literature, religion, and cultural tradition all feeds and supports our current society I use oil paint to tie my work to the extensive western canon, and by extension western civilization. Furthering this I use imagery and symbolism borrowed from these elements to give me insight into a collective unconscious that exists at the core of our society. This dualistic conversation with the collective human allows me to ask why are things the way they are, and are they fated by our nature to stay that way?