North Yorkshire, United Kingdom Mar 10, 2019 (Issuewire.com) - When: Opening 6 PM Friday, 5th April 2019, and the first two weekends of April as part of York Open Studios
Where: Micklegate Social, York.
Tom Smith had a heart condition called Dilated Cardiomyopathy for which there is no cure. He had a heart transplant that saved his life. The operation went well, but the medication’s side-effects and experience of not dying proved to be a traumatic, intense and psychedelic experience. He went a bit mad.
But blessed with vigour, a new life, an unstoppable drive, occasional manic episodes, and a touch of synaesthesia, he started painting in his garage, creating hundreds of paintings and obsessively filling notebooks. He just couldn't stop. These selected works document this life-changing experience.
Motifs of gnus, wind turbines, body parts, tree monsters, crashing planes and signage recur and are layered with scribbled texts, mantras and the sums related to keeping track of one’s fluid balance. As Tom’s practice involved more digital work, he developed software to help take his paintings in new directions and dimensions.
The videos in the augmentations are created from footage shot whilst in hospital, often from a bed or wheelchair, or during the recuperation time afterward. Like the paintings, the films are psychedelic and display texts that are generated from an unfinished account of the experience and the poems of Dr. Sophie Nicholls.
The soundtracks incorporate the sounds of gnus dying, choirs, daytime TV, morse code and heart monitors beeping mixed with samples from Killing Joke, Holst’s Mars - The Bringer of War, and Hot Chocolate’s You Sexy Thing. These samples are blended in soundscapes with the intention that the audience to the pictures *play* them at roughly the same time. In effect, the paintings become instruments, the viewers, or you become the band members.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Download the Wikitude app
- Enter “Tom Smith”
- Point your device at page 23 of the York Open Studios catalogue, or at the instructions supplied.
https://www.yorkopenstudios.co.uk/artist/tom-smith
Media Contact
Tom Smith tom@everythingability.com 7720288285 http://everythingability.com
