Tom Witherick
Tom Witherick
Instagram-@tomwitherick
Education
Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, University of Northampton, 2013-2014
BA Hons Fine Art: Painting, Wimbledon College of Art, 2014- present
Exhibitions
2014, Group exhibition, School of the Arts Northampton
2015, 1st year show, Wimbledon College of Art
2015, Interrogating the Soul, group show, Safe House 1, Peckham
2016, It’s a Pleasure, group show, Greyhound Gallery
2016, Liminal States, group show, Gallery on the Corner, Battersea
2016, Mirage, group show, A-side B-side Gallery, Hackney Downs Studios
2016, Capsticks, group show, Capsticks Ltd Wimbledon
2017, 109 Nails, group show, Copeland Gallery, Peckham
2017, Currents of Identity, group show, Crypt Gallery, Euston
Awards
Nominated for the Prunella Clough Painting Prize, 2016
My practice stems from an interest in Conceptual metaphor, a theory in cognitive linguistics that refers to the understanding of one conceptual domain in terms of another. Deriving from our embodied experience of the world these metaphors shape our literal communication, as well as the way we think and act.
Departing from these ideas my work looks at the object of painting as primarily a space (or place) for an image. By looking at the practice of painting in this regard paintings begin to function as a form of container.
Taking this pre-occupation as subject matter parallels are made between the art object and the functionality of domestic objects. By adhering to paintings object hood and often incorporating found materials, physical objects operate as visual metaphors. Works aim to set up relationships between the functional and representational, the literal and the symbolic.