ARTIST INTERVIEW: Tom Mead
Tom Mead
Please can you give me an introduction about yourself
I’m Tom Mead, I’m a figurative painter based in London. I started my career by being a finalist on Portrait Artist of the Year in 2019, and since then I’ve been been selected for ING, Clyde&Co, the Art of London AR gallery trail, a finalist of the Ruth Borchard Prize and a part of other London exhibitions. I’ve also been taking commissions and for almost a year teaching drawing and painting.
Stoic
48 x 36 inches. Acrylic and oil on aluminium.
What inspired you to paint?
Initially, as in when I was a child, I loved the storytelling aspect of drawing and painting. I was always writing stories and I felt they were extremely elevated by adding my stick figures or cartoons that looked suspiciously like the simpsons. The storytelling motivation is still a huge part of my artwork, although the narratives are now a lot more personal and, due to them being a single ‘frame’ of a story, much more open for interpretation.
Everywhere
48 x 36 inches. Acrylic and oil on aluminium.
Describe your creative process; from start to finish of a painting. Where do you find your inspiration?
Inspiration usually comes from a worry, or character study or something relating to ‘growing up’. I’ll have a loose idea based on an emotional response to something, and I’ll let that idea simmer for a while (maybe months or years) until I’m sketching compositions and realise one perfectly compliments the other. Then I’ll start considering a title, which sounds superfluous but it’s very important to me. Titles often come from song lyrics, and I want the title, song, composition and colour to all relate directly to the initial idea.
Once I’ve taken the photos (sometimes around 100), I’ll choose around 6-8 and combine them in photoshop to loosely follow my planned glitches. I make these collages very rough, as I don’t want to feel like I’m copying them when I’m painting. I might paint a mini colour study before the final piece too. When I’m satisfied, I’ll draw it up freehand on the canvas, do an underpainting, paint as much as I can in acrylic, then a final layer of oil.
I’m planning to make a long video of my full process in much more detail eventually.
I Don't Want To Know How To Have Dreams
40 x 30 inches. Acrylic on aluminium.
What is your favourite piece of work and why?
This can change a lot depending on my mood and whatever I’m currently focusing on in painting. Right now, my self portrait ‘Won’t Last Forever’ is probably my favourite. I feel like I make my best work when I paint self portraits, I don’t feel one iota of expectations or a need to please anyone and that’s a great creative headspace to be in. Compositionally and narratively I’m very pleased with that piece, it was also my first time using oil on a larger piece and my second time painting on aluminium, so I’m very glad those gambles paid off. The piece also had an accompanying sculpture when displayed in the exhibition ‘Reflections’. 2D and 3D interpretations of the same subject is something I’m extremely interested in pursuing further with my work.
Won't Last Forever
36 x 48 inches. Acrylic and oil on aluminium. Sold.
What do you think makes your work unique?
On a face value, the ‘glitches’ have become somewhat of a signature style of mine. It’s been very humbling when people have recognised my paintings before reading my name.
I also hope that the overarching narratives of all my paintings, especially when displayed together, show my voice. I aim to show a lived experience of people from my generation and background in an honest way, hopefully a deeper, more existential study of the climate we’re living in.
15 Minutes
40 x 30 inches. Acrylic on canvas.
What was it like being a finalist on Portrait Artist of The Year? What did you gain from the experience?
The experience was fantastic in hindsight, I was extremely nervous during the whole process and probably a little bit too early in finding my style to make the best creative decisions, but I owe a great deal of my current success to being on the show. It gave me exposure that as a student I couldn’t have dreamed of, and thankfully had also kept me busy with commissions. I had to really push myself during the process, and made so many practice paintings that I saw a huge development in my practice, it gave me a lot of encouragement and motivation that I think was lacking for me in art school. One of the most important things I’ve gained from the show is a community of portrait artist friends. Sometimes portraiture is seen as old fashioned, and I’m so glad it gave me an opportunity to meet incredible and exciting portrait artists. Staying in contact with them has been invaluable to my sanity in this career.
Who is your favourite artist and why? Do they have an influence on your work?
It changes fairly regularly, but for a while it’s been Euan Uglow. His obsession with measuring, proportions and translating life to the canvas is inspirational. The dedication to the accuracy of his paintings (to the model’s detriment) makes him feel like a ‘true artist’ to me, where the craft is prioritised over everything else. Over the last year I’ve tried to improve my knowledge of colour, getting more accurate to life and carefully considering the tonal values. Uglow is the master of this to me, sometimes the colours in his work appear exaggerated or too rich in saturation, but then I turn the image into black and white and see everything is tonally perfect. I also love to paint flesh and skin, but very very rarely do I find a painting of a nude that doesn’t (to me) come under the category of soft porn. Uglow’s paintings of nudes however, always feel very un-sexual and I admire that greatly, I’m hoping to find my own compositions where I could paint nudes without them feeling exploitative of the model. Standard life room artwork can avoid this, but my paintings are very narrative based and that adds to the difficulty.
Very Still Life
30 x 20 inches. Acrylic on wood. Sold.
Are you currently working on any new exciting projects?
I should have a London exhibition in October, and over the last year I have discovered how much I love teaching so I’m looking for more workshop opportunities as well as carrying on my part-time tutoring. I’m excited about a lot of the work I’m producing and have planned, and I know from past years that opportunities often come out of nowhere so hopefully there are more surprises coming up for me!
Why do you think art is important in society?
I think we all saw that during the pandemic it was the film, tv, music, crafts and everything in the Arts that kept the majority of us sane. Experiencing Art is a type of inexplicable magic trick, but I’d also encourage everyone to also create their own art of some kind, as I’ve found that the health benefits of having a creative hobby are extremely important.
