Depth Perception - Thom Buchanan
Thom Buchanan is internationally renowned for his urban-meets-environmental streetscapes but the Adelaide artist will showcase a new body of work at Paul Johnstone Gallery in June.
“The body of work I’ve created for this exhibition is looking at depth perception – which is the title of the show – and at the illusion of space,” he says.
“Most of my work conveys perspective in a 2D surface – a lot of this work is looking at hieroglyphs and surface tension; it's a bit of a segue from my older work.
“I’m looking at the physiological space, the in-between territory of stuff that humans travel through.”
Buchanan says he’s enjoying the process of diversifying his style and using his skill set in a different way.
“We always want to evolve and challenge ourselves,” he says.
“I’m technically trained to paint anything, which is pretty cool, so it’s just embracing all those techniques and skill sets to come up with nuances. If you don’t do that you just tread the same water over and over again.”
There is one element that runs through most of Buchanan’s work – the colour yellow. It’s an ode to his mother, who died from breast cancer 18 years ago.
“I always put a reference to my Mum in my work,” he says.
“It’s nice holding her memory alive – yellow was her favourite colour.
“I like the idea of the colour being quite positive – we’re living in strange times and I guess the luxury for me as an artist is, hopefully, I can plant seeds of hope into the future generations of makers or creatives or humanity.”
Buchanan has become known for his ability to create work in front of a crowd and will demonstrate this skill with live drawing at the opening.
Fri 8 – Sat 30 Jun | Opening Fri 8 Jun, 5.30pm | Paul Johnstone Gallery | See the event listing
Images from top: Thom Buchanan, ‘Time Transaction’, 2018, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60 x 60cm. Thom Buchanan, ‘Time Transaction’, 2018, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60 x 60cm. Thom Buchanan, ‘Spacial Reconstruction’, 2018, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60 x 60cm
Thumbnail: Thom Buchanan, ‘Depth Charge’, 2018, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60 x 60cm
