**The exhibition is only viewable through the windows on Warwick Street and High Street**
Tom Gillham’s exhibition features a fresh series of paintings, all created within the last year of lockdown, made in his garden studio, during a global pandemic.
“The title of my exhibition “Through the Looking Glass” has multiple meanings, similar to the layers within my work.”
The artist’s bright images appear to be reflections of nature, so maybe he wants to hold up a “mirror” to our world.
The colourful shiny paintings offer fleeting impressions, almost hand-held snap-shots taken on a journey or from a glance through a window. They combine memories of alternative worlds and nature walks – one of the few permitted activities during lockdown periods.
“Living in Sompting I’m so lucky to be a next to the wonderful South Downs with its ancient hillside farms and forts nearby within the National Park, and only a short walk to be beside the beautiful beaches of Adur and Worthing, along the sunny West Sussex coast”.
The name is taken from Lewis Carroll’s book Alice through the Looking Glass which has come to mean “often the opposite of what is normal or expected”. Many of Tom’s paintings reflect emotional states as much as material aspects of physical life and are created spontaneously. The artist is fascinated by the power of images that convey feelings about things that are often tricky to put concisely in words. Therefore, this exhibition is an opportunity to look through the gallery glass and take a peek inside the artist’s sub-conscious mind.
Tom has a fondness for quick drying acrylic applied thickly with palette knives, welcoming potential mistakes and embracing happy accidents, and his work shows an influence of abstract artist Sir Frank Bowling RA. Tom’s paper on Bowling for his Masters of Fine Art at University of Brighton (2019) was selected to be included within the official archives of the Royal Academician.
Tom currently juggles a full-time job with family time and finds peace by creating paintings and artwork in his Sussex studio. He hopes his art connects emotionally with others now and in the future.
You find out more on Tom’s website and instagram.
