Self portrait - Oil on canvas
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Tom French was born in Grangetown, Middlesbrough, UK in 1944 and served an engineering apprenticeship in the local steelworks, he subsequently worked at numerous locations abroad as a Mechanical Commissioning Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry. In 2008 Tom took early retirement from engineering to focus on his passion for painting. Working in a range of mediums, particularly in oils, acrylics, pastels, pencil, clay , wax and wood, Tom believes that an artwork should speak for itself as a visual object that does not need to be explained or justified for it to be appreciated by the viewer. He is therefore a figurative artist giving representation to objects from the world around him. His choice of subjects is predominantly influenced by his relationship to the people and environment in which he lives. Although Tom had no formal art training he acknowledges being influenced, encouraged and helped by the late David Mulholland. So much so that Tom has created an on line gallery of David's art work. Tom is being assisted in this task by Pete McCarthy (Author of a book on the life and work of David Mulholland) and Pete has also created a website of steel industry paintings held in Uk galleries artofsteeluk.weebly.com Tom has held solo exhibitions at: Wilton Centre Kirkleatham Museum - Redcar The Heritage Gallery - Cargo Fleet And jointly exhibited at: Dorman Museum - Middlesbrough www.dormanmuseum.co.uk/ The Station - Richmond www.thestation.co.uk/ Artsbank - Saltburn www.artsbank.co.uk/ MIMA(Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) www.visitmima.com/about/ Kirkleatham Museum- Redcar Exhibited at Redcar's first ever Art Fair Tom is also developing a website devoted to the Steelworks and Steelworkers of Teesside Link You can contact me at: [email protected] |
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