Tom Sam
1981 (Agen)
Living in : Toulouse
Working in : Toulouse
Artist's webSite
Tom Sam's painting refers to his own experiences, memories and encounters. He paints those who are close to him, drawing inspiration from photos he has often taken himself, images that have in common the fact that he feels a closeness to them.
This autobiographical resolution is an empathetic starting point that allows him to put the emotions of his life in suspension. He can then step back from the image and move freely between introspection and confrontation with reality, giving his intimate work a character that tends towards the universal.
The human figure is central, questioning the ambivalence of relationships, the tug-of-war that pushes us in contradictory directions, the distances that exist between the world we come from and the one we're heading for. Thus, his work is populated by silent individuals who suffer the call of the distant, while inexorably seeking the love of their fellow man. The romanticism felt as a kind of curse is exerted in the choice of violently contrasting colors, which seem to contradict the cruel, rough realism of the bodies. The sometimes austere compositions reveal an equivocal narrative, an allusive dramaturgy. We feel the human difficulty of fixation, a tension produced by this unstable balance between the threatening truth and the reassuring beauty of illusions.
As a traveler, his background as a field biologist has enabled him to apprehend the world and its populations sensitively, as a vigilant observer. Today, his painting has become a means of translating his organic understanding of nature and humanity.
Winner of the 2021 Aide Individuelle à la Création, awarded by DRAC Occitanie, he is currently developing a project previously initiated by an artistic residency in Vietnam, the country of origin of his grandparents. It examines family ties, the notion of exile and "home".
Living in : Toulouse
Working in : Toulouse
Artist's webSite
Tom Sam's painting refers to his own experiences, memories and encounters. He paints those who are close to him, drawing inspiration from photos he has often taken himself, images that have in common the fact that he feels a closeness to them.
This autobiographical resolution is an empathetic starting point that allows him to put the emotions of his life in suspension. He can then step back from the image and move freely between introspection and confrontation with reality, giving his intimate work a character that tends towards the universal.
The human figure is central, questioning the ambivalence of relationships, the tug-of-war that pushes us in contradictory directions, the distances that exist between the world we come from and the one we're heading for. Thus, his work is populated by silent individuals who suffer the call of the distant, while inexorably seeking the love of their fellow man. The romanticism felt as a kind of curse is exerted in the choice of violently contrasting colors, which seem to contradict the cruel, rough realism of the bodies. The sometimes austere compositions reveal an equivocal narrative, an allusive dramaturgy. We feel the human difficulty of fixation, a tension produced by this unstable balance between the threatening truth and the reassuring beauty of illusions.
As a traveler, his background as a field biologist has enabled him to apprehend the world and its populations sensitively, as a vigilant observer. Today, his painting has become a means of translating his organic understanding of nature and humanity.
Winner of the 2021 Aide Individuelle à la Création, awarded by DRAC Occitanie, he is currently developing a project previously initiated by an artistic residency in Vietnam, the country of origin of his grandparents. It examines family ties, the notion of exile and "home".
