Bio
Good design is about solving problems within certain constraints. Tom Burtonwood makes art works that address this maxim. His current series, Composition 2 (Color Studies) is an exploration of color, working sequentially on a 100 identical geometric compositions. Invoking the video game Tetris this design playfully articulates interlocking geometric cuboids. Using a variety of strategies and number games Burtonwood creates an almost limitless array of possibilities. Within this system there are no bad paintings, only different outcomes.
Tom Burtonwood was born in Manchester, UK in 1974. He worked as studio assistant with noted English landscape painter David Blackburn from 1993 – 1997. He received a BA Hons. in Fine Art from Loughborough University in 1997 and an MFA from Southern Illinois University in 2001. Between 2003 and 2009 he worked for Bridge, an arts and culture non profit based in Chicago first as managing editor for their magazine and later as operations director of their successful international art exposition producing shows in Miami, New York, London and Berlin. Recent exhibitions include Gillock Gallery, Paris, France; NOISEfestival, Manchester, UK; The Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College, Chicago; Version Fest 2010, Chicago; Fountain, Brooklyn; Three Walls, Chicago. Burtonwood teaches at Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.