Tom Burtonwood

New drawing / sculpture, as yet untitled. Pastel on paper, laser cut plywood, paint. Approx 16 x 30 inches. 2010

Holly and I have new pieces in a show opening at a new space called — The (Con)Temporary Art Space –  in the Loop tomorrow (thursday the 18th) night. “An Evening with your Contemporaries” features art works from artists including Ed Marszewski, Rachel Marszewski, Emily Clayton, Theordore Darst, Henry James Glover, Serena Himmlefarb, Sara Louden, Chris Roberson, Andrew Rigsby, Douglas Burns and Holly Holmes. Opening is from 4.30 – 8.30pm. (C)TAS is located at 208 South Wabash, Chicago, IL. For a sneak peak of the show / space check out my flickr set.

(C)TAS is brought to you by the folks who produce Proximity, Lumpen, Version Vest and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, The (Con)Temporary Art Space is a an avenue for discussion, research and action. The former retail space will be used as a working studio by cultural workers, producers, artists and designers for projects they are working on collectively and individually. The Public will be able to absorb these presentations as well as share their ideas about contemporary art. The (Con)Temporary Art Space will function as a information center and a place to learn about Chicago’s diverse art ecology.

Holly has some work in UnCommon Territories, opening Friday night (the 19th) at Heaven Gallery too! So we’re pretty crazed this week, but if you’re out and about stop by and say hi.

Holly Holmes, Grow Club. Seeds, Vacuum Formed Plastic. Dims var. 2009

Half way thru uploading some new drawings to flickr produced this last month. I’m really happy with the direction the work is taking. it’s certainly giving me some pause as i circle around almost fifteen years in terms of interest and output, back to the humble cube and all the variants and possibilities it offers. Look out for new installations, animations, sculpture, video and drawings in the months to come.

The focus of these drawings has been two fold (ha! pun). first to make some schematics for custom sections akin to tetris blocks for new sculpture i’m planning, cut first on laser cutter and then assembled spore like in the studio and painted. second to continue to try and solve the problem of making a cube flatten completely to a square a conundrum i;d like to realize in both sculpture and time based medium > which gave rise to a good number of drawings riffing off tetris like patterning and then finally some drawings taking the square as building block rather than the cube per se and of course comnig bakc around to make patterns based on the square too.

stay tuned. all will be revealed!

Permutation, pastel on paper, 2009

First drawing in new series of work (95% finished).