Tom Butler

“I am fascinated by the process of Conspicuous Invisibility: the simultaneous human desire to both hide and perform. In a visual way, I collect memories, thresholds and hiding places and attempt to re-manufacture them. My work expresses my natural inclination towards introversion and the opposition of displaying artwork essentially about hiding. I appropriate Victorian Cabinet Cards with incorporated personal symbols such as hair, hoods and masks painted on the surface with gouache. In the process I attempt to reveal aspects of imagined inner personalities of the sitter while entirely in the knowledge that I am cloaking them with parts of myself. I use these portraits as psychological clotheshorses to create grotesque and sinister scenarios, enabling me to project thoughts, fears and anxieties in an immediate and direct way and often with a macabre sense of humor. ”

Tom Butler, 2013